Even though my wife was assaulted in our own home and items of value were stolen, the insurance company are refusing the claim because they have it on record that we did not declare 2 accidental damage claims when the initial policy was taken out. (These claims were not missed deliberately, and purely missed off because I forgot I had made the claims)
Their reasoning is that had we declared the claims then they would have not allowed the policy to take place. The problem I have is that they employed The Cotswold Group to investigate the case, knowing already that they were going to reject the claim anyway.
The Cotswold Group came to our house, made my wife relive the entire story again and cause her immense stress and anguish by doing so. If John Lewis insurance knew the claim was going to be rejected then why did they cause ourselves more anguish and pain reliving the story, as they could have just rejected the claim anyway at the outset.
The accidental damage claims were genuinely forgot as they were several years ago, and these were not missed off because we wanted to not let the insurance company know. We declared a claim for loss away from the home, as this was a claim which we remembered as it was for over 4000.00. It does therefore not make sense to make a policy, declare a loss claim and then also not declare two other minor accidental damage claims as if I had remembered the other claims then I would have declared these.
Is there anything I can do, John Lewis are cancelling the policy, refunding our premiums and I have said I will raise the case as a complaint as I feel that we have been let down. The accidental damage claims would not invalidate the policy, though RSA underwriters are saying they would have not allowed us the policy had they knew we had 2 AD claims and a loss away from the home claim. They even tried saying we had not declared 3 AD claims, but we only knew of 2 which were advised to us by John Lewis, but Cotswold Group said it’s 3.
We we are hoping they change the decision, but I am wondering if I take this to the FOS is there a chance they will overrule the insurers and accept the claim.
many thanks.
