I receive an email from Mark at Aviva, he apologises and says he meant page 28 not page 29.
I check my policy. Page 28, is headed Conditions and as I check it out I see that these conditions relate to the Buildings section of the policy. Under the section headed ‘Settling a claim’, sure enough it states that they will not pay for the cost of replacing any undamaged items which form part of: a set (other than a pair), a suite; or any other item of a uniform nature, design or colour when damage happens to be in a specific part or within a clearly identifiable area and replacements cannot be matched.
I get such a feeling of outrage. This situation is so very intrinsically and fundamentally wrong. Not just for me but for all of us. We take out insurance in good faith. We think we will be covered in the event of a disaster happening and it gives us a sense of security and peace of mind that our belongings and our property is protected. This sense of security and peace of mind doesn’t come free, we pay for it. We pay a lot for it -in my case somewhere in the region of £500 a year. I could get cheaper cover, I know I could, but I want a comprehensive policy that will pay out when I need it. The leak was an unfortunate event. It wasn’t my fault, it just happened. My bathroom was lovely and I was happy with it. It fit with the general condition of the house and was a feature that enhanced its saleability. I can’t believe that with all the consumer protection and regulation we have to protect us as customers, I am faced with the prospect of having to stump up more cash (apparently to the tune of around £650+VAT) so that I don’t have to have un- matching tiles on the bathroom wall. How can the insurance company leave a job with such an unacceptable finish? They will obviously claim that it's there in black and white in the policy so there can be no argument about it but the way its been written is very misleading, if not downright deceptive. Yes of course they tell us we must read our policy booklet carefully but most of us are just ordinary people. We lead busy lives having to work long hours, manage homes and bring up our families. Even if we find the time to read the 40 page A4 booklet with its tiny writing and legal sounding tone, we’re either too tired to take it all in or we don’t really understand it anyway. I know we have to take responsibility for our own lives and the things we do but unless we take expensive professional advice on all these terms and conditions we are given when we transact any business, we really have to trust the companies to be honest, transparent and helpful with the information they give us and hope that they will provide it in a way that we can understand. I am probably more conscientious than most at reading my paperwork but even I couldn’t follow and understand all the information that is packed into that policy booklet. The best we can hope to do is to focus our attention on the main section of the policy that tells us what is covered and what is excluded so that we don’t get any nasty surprises. When I took the policy out, I did check to make sure that there was nothing in the exclusions that wasn’t covered that I would expect to be covered and from the list in the policy document it seemed very standard. I have been taking out property insurance policies since 1989 so I have a good idea of what tends to get covered and what doesn’t. The fact that matching tiling won’t get covered- leaving customers with a finish they would undoubtedly consider unacceptable once the repair work has been done, should surely be clearly covered in the exclusions section rather than hidden away in a later section of the booklet that deals with settling a claim. If it had been covered in the exclusions, I would at least have seen it and had the option to shop around to see if I could obtain a policy that would provide me with that cover. Even having been told once I had made the claim that I wasn’t covered for the undamaged tiling I wasn’t able to find the relevant section of the policy that tells me its excluded. Its worth noting that in fact it took Aviva quite some time to work out where the clause was too. I first raised my dissatisfaction at this exclusion on the 13th October 2010 when the Surveyor conducted the Loss Survey. Its taken until the 25th January 2011 (well over 3 months) for Aviva to finally be able to provide the information as to how my policy excludes the undamaged tiles from being covered. Its bad enough that its classed as an exclusion, but if it is, surely it’s not an unreasonable expectation that someone could have taken hold of my concern straight away and been able to explain very clearly that the exclusion is covered on page 28 of my policy document under the conditions attached to the settling of claims made under the Buildings cover. I shouldn’t have had to draw it out bit by bit like this over the course of three months!
The list of things I’m not happy about just continues to grow. I still don’t have the information I need to be able to decide what to do about the tiles. Nadine at the Asprea Complaints department hasn’t bothered to reply to my request that she let me know how many square metres of tiling I have, neither has she confirmed that I won’t be charged for any of the cost of removing and refitting the fixtures and fittings. I also don’t know what proportion of the tiling they will class as covered and what they won’t. Whilst the policy says that it will not cover items that are undamaged where the damage has occurred within a clearly designated area, it is open to interpretation what is classed as a clearly designated area With everything that has gone on, I’m afraid I don’t have any faith at all that Asprea/Aviva won’t have tried to exclude sections of tiling that actually ought to be covered. For example, would they class tiles that make up the splashback surround of the bath as being a designated area? If one section of that area is affected by the damage, should they then cover replacement of all the splashback tiles surrounding the bath? And what about an entire wall? Is it reasonable to say that a designated area ends halfway across a wall? This is all information that needs to be clarified. It would be nice to think that I can just put the questions to Asprea/Aviva and they will come back with a fair, accurate and speedy response but I really don’t hold out much hope of that happening. No one seems to want to get involved. Even the Manager of the Complaints Unit at Aviva hasn’t been back in touch. I just seem to be constantly badgering and hassling people to try and get information and to get things moving. What with having to get up that much earlier everyday so we can all fit in having baths and washing our hair I am really starting to struggle with daily life. I’m fed up of feeling so stressed about all this that I am constantly grumpy and taking out my frustration on my family. I’ve got pains in my neck, shoulder and back that make it uncomfortable bending over the bath every day and God knows how we will pay the energy bills this quarter as they are going to be through the roof with us having to run water over the bath to wash our hair and then run water in the bath to get washed in. We must be using three times the amount of hot water we usually do.
I get such a feeling of outrage. This situation is so very intrinsically and fundamentally wrong. Not just for me but for all of us. We take out insurance in good faith. We think we will be covered in the event of a disaster happening and it gives us a sense of security and peace of mind that our belongings and our property is protected. This sense of security and peace of mind doesn’t come free, we pay for it. We pay a lot for it -in my case somewhere in the region of £500 a year. I could get cheaper cover, I know I could, but I want a comprehensive policy that will pay out when I need it. The leak was an unfortunate event. It wasn’t my fault, it just happened. My bathroom was lovely and I was happy with it. It fit with the general condition of the house and was a feature that enhanced its saleability. I can’t believe that with all the consumer protection and regulation we have to protect us as customers, I am faced with the prospect of having to stump up more cash (apparently to the tune of around £650+VAT) so that I don’t have to have un- matching tiles on the bathroom wall. How can the insurance company leave a job with such an unacceptable finish? They will obviously claim that it's there in black and white in the policy so there can be no argument about it but the way its been written is very misleading, if not downright deceptive. Yes of course they tell us we must read our policy booklet carefully but most of us are just ordinary people. We lead busy lives having to work long hours, manage homes and bring up our families. Even if we find the time to read the 40 page A4 booklet with its tiny writing and legal sounding tone, we’re either too tired to take it all in or we don’t really understand it anyway. I know we have to take responsibility for our own lives and the things we do but unless we take expensive professional advice on all these terms and conditions we are given when we transact any business, we really have to trust the companies to be honest, transparent and helpful with the information they give us and hope that they will provide it in a way that we can understand. I am probably more conscientious than most at reading my paperwork but even I couldn’t follow and understand all the information that is packed into that policy booklet. The best we can hope to do is to focus our attention on the main section of the policy that tells us what is covered and what is excluded so that we don’t get any nasty surprises. When I took the policy out, I did check to make sure that there was nothing in the exclusions that wasn’t covered that I would expect to be covered and from the list in the policy document it seemed very standard. I have been taking out property insurance policies since 1989 so I have a good idea of what tends to get covered and what doesn’t. The fact that matching tiling won’t get covered- leaving customers with a finish they would undoubtedly consider unacceptable once the repair work has been done, should surely be clearly covered in the exclusions section rather than hidden away in a later section of the booklet that deals with settling a claim. If it had been covered in the exclusions, I would at least have seen it and had the option to shop around to see if I could obtain a policy that would provide me with that cover. Even having been told once I had made the claim that I wasn’t covered for the undamaged tiling I wasn’t able to find the relevant section of the policy that tells me its excluded. Its worth noting that in fact it took Aviva quite some time to work out where the clause was too. I first raised my dissatisfaction at this exclusion on the 13th October 2010 when the Surveyor conducted the Loss Survey. Its taken until the 25th January 2011 (well over 3 months) for Aviva to finally be able to provide the information as to how my policy excludes the undamaged tiles from being covered. Its bad enough that its classed as an exclusion, but if it is, surely it’s not an unreasonable expectation that someone could have taken hold of my concern straight away and been able to explain very clearly that the exclusion is covered on page 28 of my policy document under the conditions attached to the settling of claims made under the Buildings cover. I shouldn’t have had to draw it out bit by bit like this over the course of three months!
The list of things I’m not happy about just continues to grow. I still don’t have the information I need to be able to decide what to do about the tiles. Nadine at the Asprea Complaints department hasn’t bothered to reply to my request that she let me know how many square metres of tiling I have, neither has she confirmed that I won’t be charged for any of the cost of removing and refitting the fixtures and fittings. I also don’t know what proportion of the tiling they will class as covered and what they won’t. Whilst the policy says that it will not cover items that are undamaged where the damage has occurred within a clearly designated area, it is open to interpretation what is classed as a clearly designated area With everything that has gone on, I’m afraid I don’t have any faith at all that Asprea/Aviva won’t have tried to exclude sections of tiling that actually ought to be covered. For example, would they class tiles that make up the splashback surround of the bath as being a designated area? If one section of that area is affected by the damage, should they then cover replacement of all the splashback tiles surrounding the bath? And what about an entire wall? Is it reasonable to say that a designated area ends halfway across a wall? This is all information that needs to be clarified. It would be nice to think that I can just put the questions to Asprea/Aviva and they will come back with a fair, accurate and speedy response but I really don’t hold out much hope of that happening. No one seems to want to get involved. Even the Manager of the Complaints Unit at Aviva hasn’t been back in touch. I just seem to be constantly badgering and hassling people to try and get information and to get things moving. What with having to get up that much earlier everyday so we can all fit in having baths and washing our hair I am really starting to struggle with daily life. I’m fed up of feeling so stressed about all this that I am constantly grumpy and taking out my frustration on my family. I’ve got pains in my neck, shoulder and back that make it uncomfortable bending over the bath every day and God knows how we will pay the energy bills this quarter as they are going to be through the roof with us having to run water over the bath to wash our hair and then run water in the bath to get washed in. We must be using three times the amount of hot water we usually do.
As a customer I feel very weary and badly let down by a financial institution that I trusted. I wasn’t told that I needed to take separate cover for Buildings matching items when I took the policy out. The policy did nothing to help highlight the fact that Buildings matching items cover is separate and the exclusion clause (if you can even call it an exclusion clause) for buildings matching items cover is hidden away in a section where it’s easy to miss.
Despite wanting to get things sorted, I know I need to take a break from this before I crack up altogether.
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