To think there is no point in most insurance and it's largely a scam?

[pinotnow]

I've just come back from a holiday on which one of the dc damaged one of their gadgets in a careless accident - think knocking it off a table, so not something utterly ridiculous like throwing it. I've just checked our insurance in the hope it might be covered as I know I paid a bit extra for gadget cover. By the time you go through all the exclusions this really amounts to burglary cover as the only type of loss covered is if someone forcefully entered the locked property and took it! That's not really loss, is it?

Although it's called loss or accident, the definition of accident is nowhere near the standard. I mean I expected things like following the manufacture's instructions and not using it in water, for example. But it mentions they won't cover any damage caused by negligence, which I assume covers pretty much anything that would normally be considered an accident. As I said, loss just seems to mean if it's stolen from a locked property.

What a waste of money! It was a mid-price product, not the cheapest at all. Obviously I know you should read all this stuff beforehand. In future I'll just see travel insurance as to be used if someone is seriously ill, injured, or worse.

Basically it seems you need to pay s fortune to have insurance that actually covers stuff and the people who can afford this could probably easily afford the replace their items anyway. Or have I misunderstood?

Could she take it to the ombudsman?

Well ours covered the entire rebuilding, re decorating, refurnishing and restocking garage. And then there was the 80000 consumables and clothing.

Total claim including house rebuild probably around 650 k in 2014

Yes insurance is a complete scam.

For example if you have the extended personal injury cover as part of your car insurance have a good read of the policy. It will likely exclude injuries to the hands, feet and face. All the places you are most likely to get injured.

We had bike insurance for YEARS for the bikes that we kept in the garage. The insurance would not pay out when the garage got broken into. We had paid cash for them (this is a while ago) and had no receipt and because we couldn't provide any photos of us on the bikes, they told us the bikes didn't exist in the first place.

I had to have an emergency operation on the day I was due to holiday. The insurance would not pay out. They asked for proof of admission to hospital. Then proof of discharge. Then a letter from the surgeon. We furnished them with everything. Then they said they had to have a letter from the GP. It had to detail the run up to the surgery. There was no run up. It was an emergency surgery! Nope they wouldn't pay out.

Interesting segment on radio 5 I think the other morning. The gist was the car insurance premiums had gone up because the insurers lost money during covid and the want 'their' money back. Of course when they make a massive profit, they don't give it back do they? It's still 'their' money.

They're thieving scam basically.

Insurance was the most brilliant invention- trading worthless bits of paper, and wriggling out of ever paying up.

My top tip for jewellery is to photograph yourself wearing each and every piece. They will ask for pictures of you wearing it. As someone who dislikes being photographed it was a bit of a challenge to find photos when I was burgled,

Definitely a massive point in insurance. My health insurance has been invaluable the last few years. My pet insurance means my dogs get the best care they can as I wouldn’t be able to afford a big lump sum.

It sounds like you didn’t read the small print and purchased an insurance product that didn’t fully fit your needs.

Insurance is indeed a gamble, but it’s the underwriter who is taking the risk, not you. It’s a myth that most insurers make huge profits, in most cases, the ratio of payments out to premiums received is quite low. Car insurance has historically been very unprofitable.

However, these companies are responsible to the shareholders for producing a profit.
If a claim is made, they can’t just pay it, they have to ensure that it’s valid. There has been and still is a lot of insurance fraud, from organised car crashes down to individuals trying to replace household goods on the cheap. Some of the people posting on here have probably got pensions, Isas etc indirectly invested in insurance. I expect you’d like them to make a profit?

If you’ve got a valid claim, and can prove it, and still feel that you’ve been treated unfairly, then the Insurance Ombudsman exists to take up your case. Why would you expect underwriters to pay out if you can’t prove that you owned something?

Unfortunately, some of the posts above suggest that people simply didn’t read the policy. Insurance isn’t a magic cloak that will cover you against anything and everything, it is often quite specific because otherwise it simply wouldn’t be affordable. They are not looking for ways to catch you out, they are simply trying to limit their risk.

Read the policy, decide if it’s worth it and make your choice. There’s a big difference between insuring your washing machine and going on an overseas trip without any cover.

OP have you actually tried claiming? Negligence and accidental are entirely different. I'd have thought what you described is covered.

Some companies are better than others, but unfortunately you don't find out until you claim. For the big items it is worth going with a highly rated insurer, if you can.

I mainly take travel insurance out to cover our health if we have an accident or stuck out in a wild fire / disaster zone etc and am not bothered by possible damage to gadgets by my own careless DC.

I wouldn't even think to claim tbh for such trivial nonsense

I'd have thought most people just claim once they get home on their Home and Contents insurance

I don't think you're being unreasonable, OP. I've seen serious illness cover that excludes almost every condition that a person is likely to get.

Even weirder than that are the policies that they used to advertise in magazines (don't know if they still do them) - that were designed to insure women against female-exclusive cancers - although they did include breast cancer; I'm guessing there would have been outrage if they hadn't, and it's probably the one that attracted most customers.

Considering that, as well as being women, women are also people - who can contract a great many different human bodily cancers that men can also get - and that they didn't even mention any other serious and critical illnesses that weren't cancer; I'm amazed at why they were so popular. It's like insuring your house against burglary by somebody wearing a black jumper, but not against a burglar wearing any other colour jumper (or no jumper at all).

I don't have life insurance as my own and family health circumstances mean that they would either refuse cover or otherwise charge me hundreds/thousands of pounds every month, probably still with many exclusions. To echo a PP, if you have a pre-existing condition that can potentially affect any part of your body, they're so obviously going to turn down pretty much anything, on the grounds that it 'could have' been caused by your PEC.

But it's not all bad news, as I DO still regularly receive the leaflets from L&G and others, urging me to be a caring, responsible parent and not leave my child in the crap because of my selfish/stupid/penny-pinching actions... which is... erm, nice, maybe?

I wonder if those products were aimed at an older grouo of women for whom female specific cancers were embarassing and they wanted to take control and speak to a more anonymous specialist rather than go through their family GP? My great grandmother died of breast cncer because she was too embarrassed to go to her (obviously male) family doctor for a breast exam.

That said I used to work in financial services regulation and in my personal opinion there were a lot of junk insurance products that just preyed upon the anxieties of certain vulnerable groups.

Well, to update, I did put a claim in this morning and it has already been rejected! The reason is the product was a refurbished one and the policy does not cover refurbished products unless purchased direct from the manufacturer, which mine was not. How that has any bearing on its falling off a table I don't know, but there it is. The quote I have had to fix it is as much as I paid for it in the first place, which is a shame as it has been great for the last 3 years with no issues whatsoever. Oh well, at least I can afford to get it done.