Member Advice on Insurance > Reviews (19)

Last year when came the time to renew my content insurance I took full advantage of an offer sent to me by my bank. On taking my Content Insurance with them, I would be given £20 cash back.. After some shopping around I took them on, got a quote and sign on the dotted line.

One think one must know about Banks and Supermarket providing insurance of any sort is that they really don’t, so let me explain the process.

In my case Lloyds TSB acted as a Broker. It means that although they will bring in the punter, they cannot – I cannot stress this anymore – in any way provide you with the insurance directly under their name as they are not registered to do so.

You see in a lot of walk of Life, in order to provide service – say Banking – or a product – say Insurance – you must be registered to do so. In banking you must first obtain a banking licence from the local Central Bank – in England, the Bank of England. For insurer, well it is pretty similar, they need to register with a Government controlled body which I believe to be the FSA – Financial Service Authority.

So here we are, making the deal with Lloyds TSB knowing full well that my insurance will be held with someone else, in my case, Groupama.

Everything went honky dory, I pay my monthly direct debit, they keep quiet. That went on for 6 month until I tried to make a claim.

First of all I must give them some kudos. Their claim process is somewhat easy, simple phone call, state your problem and the claim is registered. No need to fill endless forms, repeating the same info., take zillions of pictures of your damage and lost property.. although the pics of lost property always put a smile on my face.
But my claim was somewhat special, nails were involved !

2 month ago now, my Other Half put the washing machine on and forgot to ensure that its water pipe was securely attached to the sewage pipe. The problem is that since Littl’Un and the acquisition of a dishwasher, both appliances are sharing the same sewage pipe which means that you must ensure you have secured the water pipe of the applicance you are using to it.
Pain in the ass yes, but hey, changing the current plumbing was quoted at around £80, all things balanced, it is your memory against £80…

In any case as you would have now gathered, the water pipe was not as secured as it could have been and flew off at the first drop of water going through it.
The kitchen floor got flooded, my downstairs neighbour’s guest bedroom got soaked and the kitchen laminate flooring popped its little head out and bubbled.
However cute it might look, it is not what we wanted for our kitchen, so I called Groupama to make a claim, after all, this is why you pay insurance at the first place right!

To my utter surprise the person I spoke to on the other line told me that my laminate flooring could not possibly be covered under my content insurance as it belonged to the building. Why I hear you heckle at the back, well why indeed… why indeed..
Groupama point is that since my laminate flooring has beading around it to cover the gap you must leave between the flooring and the skirting, and the said beading was attached to the skirting by tiny nails – about 2 cm long - approximately 50cm apart, then it now belonged to the building.

Yes, you have read... about 20 2cm long nails make something I personally bought and introduced to my flat is now part of the building...

No arguing, flirting, begging, trying to make logic where there was none, putting my Littl'Un on the phone to explain in baby terms the damage, shaking the threat of the Financial Ombudsman – all powerful Financial Authority and ultimate arbitrator in dispute – and finally getting Lloyds TSB involved changed anything. They blankly refused to admit liability and pay the Claim.

This has been going on for 2 month and still nothing. Today I am making an official claim to the Financial Ombudsman in order to get this sorted out but thought I would rant on Ciao first…

I will update this review as I go along.. This promises to be the mother of all jokes.