I don't know how to link to a specific post in Velopoly, so here's Charlotte's post on M+S insurance - she did get the bikes back, by the way!
http://velopoly.com/
Home and contents insurance rip off from AXA via Marks and Spencer – claim refused
Posted on 28 February 2011
Following the theft of eight of our bicycles last week, the response from the readers of this blog, as well as hundreds of people on Twitter, Facebook, YACF, Cyclechat, LFGSS and various other forums has been awesome. I don’t think I’ve had as many page views as I had for the post I made on the 24th and it’s amazing to see the way that the cycling community comes together when someone asks for some help. So thank you to everyone; Julian and I are really grateful.
Although our search for the missing bikes continues, I thought I’d post and tell you about the Insurance company. Like a lot of other cycling households, we have our house and contents cover provided by Marks and Spencer. They were recommended to us for their high quality cover and good customer service. M&S insurance offers a lot of benefits to cyclists, including a high value for each cycle and unlimited cycles on the policy. It’s a bit pricier than other cheaper insurers, but with around twenty bikes between us, including a Santana tandem, we wanted good cover so we were happy to pay for it.
When I took out the policy a couple of years ago, I specifically asked whether we would be covered in our rented garage one street away from the house. They said yes. I was so concerned that I asked for a letter to be sent to me that made mention of this and thankfully we still have that letter in our files.
When I called up the claims line after we discovered the burglary, we were initially told that we weren’t covered at this address because we were in the process of moving house. Julian had called them to arrange transfer of our policy from the old place to the new place and informed them of the date of the move. Despite us still living at the old address when I claimed last week, they had our electronic records as the new address so they said we weren’t covered.
Needless to say, once the situation was explained (at length – this took a number of phone calls) this was sorted out. The address was right, we did do what we were supposed to do. However…
The man on the end of the phone explained to me that “on this occasion Miss Barnes, we’re sorry to say that we won’t be able to take this claim forward any further…” (don’t you just hate the weasel words these people use?)
He went onto explain that although we were covered when we took the policy out, M&S have subsequently changed our insurance providers from Aviva to AXA. He said that we were sent a booklet that illustrated the policy changes between the two companies and one of them was that we were no longer covered in our rented garage. Now, needless to say, we still have these booklets and both reading them back then as well as again now, this policy change is far from clear. Had it have been, we would most certainly have raised this as an issue because the whole point of this policy was to cover our precious bicycles.
Julian has subsequently explained Lord Denning’s Big Red Hand to me and it would appear that we have a very good chance of overturning this decision at the Ombudsman. But until then folks, check your insurance policies VERY carefully.
And whatever you do, don’t buy an insurance policy from Marks and Spencers or AXA. Especially if you’re relying on it to cover your valuable bicycles
