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household contents – fraud – police not informed of full loss – whether sufficient reason for rejecting claim.

Mr and Mrs B returned home from an evening out to find they had been burgled. They notified the police right away and rang the firm the next morning. The claim form they sent the firm listed 63 stolen items, with a total value of over £20,000.

The firm’s investigator was suspicious about the claim and his enquiries continued for the next eleven months.

During the enquiries, the couple’s insurance came up for renewal. The firm took more than two months to consider the matter and then refused to renew. The couple were unable to obtain any replacement insurance.

Almost a year after the loss, the firm rejected the claim. It said that when Mr and Mrs B reported the loss to the police, they had not mentioned all the items they later claimed for. It also said that Mr and Mrs B had not provided all the help and information it needed.

complaint upheld
Mrs B said that she had still been in shock when she reported the burglary to the police and she had only mentioned the most obvious items that were missing. This explanation was entirely credible. Theft victims may well not be aware of the full extent of their loss within a few minutes of discovering it. In any case, Mrs B had mentioned most of the missing items when she telephoned the firm the morning after the burglary. And the couple had receipts for nearly everything.

We required the firm to settle the claim and to pay £500 compensation for its maladministration. We did not think it had handled the claim well, and it had not given Mr and Mrs B sufficient notice that it would not renew their insurance.

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