Years ago, a situation like this would have been dealt with by sternly telling the child off, not by suing them! No wonder the UK now has one of the highest rates of childhood mental illness. We should allow children to be children.

So 13 year old boys are expected to be perfect now and never make mistakes, are they? Are you going to take away his school dinner money as well?! :/

I think the insurers have acted correctly in accordance with the principle of indemnity. The sum insured is what is used to calculate the premium. Underinsurance occurs when the sum insured is too low and this inevitably results in too low a premium being charged. If all the other policyholders have paid a premium based on the full value of their property, then it is not equitable to accept risks that are based on less than this. Therefore, if there is underinsurance at the time of a claim, the settlement will be reduced in proportion to the amount of underinsurance. There must be some clause about this in your policy. It is known as the "Average" clause, although it might be under Under-insurance. I don't think the cause of the claim (eg whether it is fire or theft etc) is relevant here, as the fact still remains that the premium paid was too low - so I think the clause will be applied regardless of this. If you want confirmation of this, it's probably best to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

I'm afraid to say the "Pairs, Sets and Suites" clause does also apply to fitted kitchens and wall tiles. The clause applies to any item of a uniform nature, design or colour. Rather than getting your own quotes for the kitchen, it's probably best to let your buildings insurers deal with that, especially as they've already rejected 2 of your quotes. They will probably have special deals with approved contractors.

If you tell the Halifax about the dual insurance, they should be able to work things out with the Nationwide by themselves. So I don't think the lateness of the claim will be a problem. There is still a chance you might be able to cancel the Nationwide policy, but you would have to see what both companies say.

It is likely that the claim will be settled on the principle of contribution. This means that wherever dual insurance exists, each insurer would pay their rateable proportion of the claim. In order to calculate the rateable proportion for each insurer, the formula is: the policy sum insured divided by the total sum insured (for both policies). Then you multiply the result by the amount of the loss (ie £2,500). As a result of this formula, you shouldn't be any worse off even though there was dual insurance. It means that if the sum insured on the Halifax policy was higher than that for Nationwide, Halifax would have to pay a higher rateable proportion of the claim. It is perfectly legal to have dual insurance (even knowingly) but in practice it isn't worthwhile as you can only ever claim once for each loss. Even if a claimant tried to claim with multiple insurers for the same loss, they wouldn't succeed because virtually all major insurers record their claims on the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE) database. (I'm not saying you were trying to do that, but I just thought I'd mention it so you are aware of how the industry manages situations like these).

It probably won't be necessary for you to do anything, as most insurers only take into account 5 years of NCD anyway (although I think a few do take into account 9 years). So not having proof of 16 years NCD shouldn't affect your premium if you go to a new company.

Sorry for the misinformation. When I wrote my original reply, I was thinking about employee pensions (ie occupational pensions). As you took out your pension as a member of the public, the rules about national insurance contributions would be different.

I don't think all is lost. With a standard insurance policy such as a home or motor policy, if someone loses the policy document they would still be covered so long as the insurance company/broker had a record of the cover. So I can't understand why this would be different. Surely deleting the confirmation email would be the same as losing a printed policy document?

I think the state pension will still be around by the time we retire, it's just that the retirement age will be higher than it is now. There are lots of people who don't have a company pension or any savings at all, and the government surely couldn't just leave these people to starve in their old age! I am contracted into SERPS and I think that is probably the safest thing to do for the majority of people (ie people in money purchase/defined contribution pension schemes). I know some people do contract out of SERPS if they are enrolled in a final salary/defined benefit pension scheme, but these are quite rare nowadays as most such schemes are closed to new entrants. People with final salary pensions will have a guaranteed income from their employer, but the rest of us won't, which is why we would need to rely on SERPS more. Your national insurance contributions will be higher if you contract in, but I think it's worth it if you get a higher pension when you retire.

Did you cancel in time for the renewal date? If so, there shouldn't be an outstanding amount to pay.

I think they are being unreasonable here. A lot of people delete their emails regularly and therefore wouldn't still have copies of the confirmation emails. I don't see why Heath Lambert insist on seeing these emails. Surely Travelodge must have a record of all the bookings you made? If you still have the booking numbers then it should be OK. If you have any other proof of what you paid for the bookings, such as copies of credit card statements etc, then that should help as well.

This isn't Aviva by any chance is it? I know they sometimes do renewal offers like this, or at least they used to. I was just wondering, because there is a customer service manager on this forum who would be able to help, if that's the case.

Fortunately, I don't think that's true. Loss adjusters are supposed to be impartial and independent. They are not usually direct employees of insurance companies - they are usually employed by specialist loss adjusting companies. They may work on behalf of several insurance companies. The loss adjusting company is paid for its services by the insurance companies, and then the individual loss adjusters are paid an annual salary by the loss adjusting company. So they are not paid directly by the insurance companies. I think that if a bonus was paid, this would cause a conflict of interest. When you say your neighbours have been paid for things that you haven't, are they all with the same landlord as you (if you live in a rented house)? Is there a block buildings insurance policy covering all the houses in the street, or did you buy your own policy? If it's a block policy, then you should be treated consistently with your neighbours and the terms and conditions should be the same. If you bought your policy yourself then there's a strong possibility your policy is underwritten by a different insurer than your neighbours, in which case the terms and conditions may be different.

People who present a higher risk have to pay higher premiums. You can't say fairer than that. I don't have a lot of sympathy for drink-drivers, I'm afraid, because of the risk they present to both themselves and other road users. Always better to be safe than sorry. All I can say is that I hope your daughter will learn from her mistake,

Do you have a copy of the email you sent to the company? If you use an email service like Hotmail, it automatically saves your sent emails to the Sent folder, along with the date and time you sent it. That could serve as proof that you requested the policy to start on the 25th of June.

Did you cancel the policy at least 3 days before the renewal date? If not, then you might have inadvertantly used part of the new year's cover and they would charge you for that.

How come it was thrown out?

Yes I think the letter sounds OK. It's probably best if you detail all the events leading up the the present day, to avoid any delays caused by them having to contact you for further information.

Yes, it's in the T & Cs: "If you do exercise this right to cancel your insurance, you will be charged by the insurer for the service provided up to the point of cancellation. We will also make a cancellation charge of £50.00 except as shown in the 'service charges' table overleaf. You will not be entitled to a refund of the service charge or credit card handling charge made by us for arranging your insurance." As vusys1 says, it's probably best to leave the policy in force until the cashback dispute is resolved

The current period of insurance began either when you took out or renewed the policy, whichever is the most recent. As a claim has occurred in the current period of insurance, you won't be able to cancel under this clause. I can tell this is a Royal Bank of Scotland (eg Churchill or Direct Line) policy wording. On page 11 of the Churchill policy it says: "We will not refund your premium if you have made a claim or if one has been made against you during the period of cover. If you are paying by instalments you must pay the balance of the full annual premium." The Direct Line version is very similar, ie they won't refund any of your premium if you make a claim, so even if you pay monthly the full year's premium will become payable.

Generally, buildings insurance covers the structure of the home together with its fixtures and fittings, whereas contents insurance covers the contents of your home, the possessions you would take with you if you moved house. Is the flooring permanently fixed to the house, or would you be able to take it with you if you moved? I think that's the question which would determine whether your claim will be met or not. I know that ordinary carpets are considered to be contents, as you can easily remove them and re-lay them elsewhere. As for receipts - do you still have access to your bank statements/credit card statements from 2 years ago, showing the payments to the joiner? If you don't have them, you could ask your bank to send you a copy of the relevant statement, but they might charge you for it. If you do internet banking, you might be able to access your statements on there free of charge, although I'm not sure how many months they go back.

As far as I can see, Aviva doesn't have a clause like this. Whether they did in the past, I'm not sure, so I'll take your word for it. Can you let me know where you bought this policy, so I can check the relevant policy wording? Insurers are required to pay a fee to the FOS if a case reaches the investigation stage - this fee applies regardless of whether the complaint is upheld. This document explains when a case becomes chargeable. My bet is that your claims is being handled by an inexperienced claims adviser and they have made a mistake. I can understand why one might try to reject a claim if the driver was actually convicted of drink driving (dependent on policy wording), but not if no conviction was ever made.

Hopefully you'll get this message in time. Swinton is the broker, NIG (part of Royal Bank of Scotland) is the underwriter of the policy. After doing a google search, it seems that UK Assistance is yet another part of Royal Bank of Scotland - they are internal loss adjusters who will validate and collect the evidence of the claim. As long as you have receipts or photos, it shouldn't matter that you don't still have the boxes. Even instruction manuals could help if you still have those. I think the way your claim is being handled is very much the norm nowadays.

I think the first thing you need to do is find out exactly why they are saying you have no cover. It could be due to any number of things, for example the policy expiring just before the flood occurred, that your policy didn't cover you for flood damage (which would be unusual), that the broker didn't pass on the premium to the insurer, payments being missed etc or it could be a systems fault at their end.