Last November the rented house next door caught fire while we were out. The tenant failed to call the fire service and the alarm was raised by staff at a nearby school. The tenant ran from the house, never to be seen again. Our period front door was destroyed, the bathroom flooded, carpets soaked and there was extensive smoke damage throughout.
The landlord of the next-door property assured us it would all be covered by his insurance.
We contacted our insurance firm – Legal & General – to claim and cleaned up ourselves so we could move back quickly. Since then, Legal & General has refused to try to reclaim our costs from the landlord’s insurer, though it appears negligence contributed to the fire.
We’ve discovered that the tenant had accumulated rubbish in a kitchen where he used an unapproved electric bar heater and that there were more people in the property than it was licensed for.
In January, we received a renewal notice from Legal & General with a whopping 27% increase. I tried to shop around for a better deal but failed, primarily due to the recent claim. I therefore paid.
But in April, I found I could not get access to my buildings insurance online. It turned out Legal & General had cancelled my policy in January.
So, unknown to me, my house has been uninsured for three months. No cancellation notice was sent and the full payment taken from my card. It admitted it had found the payment, but it hadn’t been attached to our policy. It offered a paltry £25 compensation for the error.
RG, London
Thousands of insurance customers, most commonly motorists, are lumbered with a “fault” claim even when they are not to blame. This is usually when the insurer has decided that it would not be able to defend a claim in court and it would be cheaper to pay out than fight. The customer takes the hit in increased premiums, especially when the payout is relatively small, as in your case.
Legal & General insists: “We will always make every reasonable effort to pursue recovery and an investigation was made,” it says. “However, we need to prove negligence and this could not be established.”
It apologises for the “confusion”, reinstated the policy and paid £80 compensation. You can take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which will decide whether L&G has acted reasonably.
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