House Insurance - to claim or not to claim?

lucylu

Scum broke into our garage yesterday stealing 2 bikes, garden and power tools totaling approx 1200 .

We have only 1 bike receipt for 300 but gave photos and serial number of the other worth 500.The excess on our policy is 250 . We don't have receipts for the garden or power tools.
We will lose our 7 years no claims if we claim.
Is there much point of claiming and does anyone have any idea of the % hike in our next year's policy.
Any advice would be much appreciated

Liam McPoyle

Were the bikes specifically named on the policy?

Alot of insurers wont cover them as they are a high risk item for theft so unless they are named they may not be covered anyway.

In terms of whether you should claim or not, thats really only something you can answer.

Can you afford to replace the items yourselves?

Were the power tools in good nick / new ish?

It also depends on your insurer and their NCD scale.

Some give you only 20% discount so making a claim will mean next year your policy will increase by 20% minimum plus what ever other standard increases are applied. Some give you a 50% discount so claiming could see a hefty hike on premium.

You should just call them and ask for a ball park figure if you were to claim and lose your bonus.

lucylu

Thanks Business cat. The bike with the receipt was new and was not on the policy the other bike was on the policy. As for the tools they were not new but well kept in their cases.
tough call don't want to claim if it will essentially we get back less than the premium increase.
Its a rotten feeling

coylemj

Even discussing a claim can bar you from getting a quote from another company in the next few years. This was raised by a poster on another thread recently where he/she discussed the hypothetical notion of claiming for an accident in the home whereupon their insurance company decided that they had had an 'incident' which was logged on their policy in the same fashion as a claim.

I mention this because you say that you 'gave photos and serial number of the other worth 500' - does this mean that you have already lodged a provisional claim? If so, you may be as well to go ahead and claim because the damage (to your NCB) is done, otherwise I'd say don't and take it on the chin.

In case you're not aware of how the insurance industry works, you will not be able to get a quote from any other insurance company for several years after a claim which means that you and your current insurer will be stuck with one another and you will have to pay whatever they ask on each renewal. This means that whatever you claim, you will pay back in increased premiums before you are able to go back to the market and get competitive quotes. Bottom line is that unless you suffer a fire or a really major theft, you are better off not claiming.

lucylu

Thanks Coylemj
Should have been have and not gave...predictive text!
No we have not filled out an incident form but my OH rang the insurance company and they are sending out a form in the post :-(

Thanks for the advice.