Home & Contents Insurance - Buying A
Policy
This is, perhaps, an easier process than buying
motor insurance. But the same basic rules apply. The same
principles of insurance apply.
Honesty.
You MUST tell the truth to your insurers (and they in turn must
tell the truth to you!). This is called 'utmost good faith'.
And, legally, you have to tell them everything that might
affect their assessment of the risk you present to them.
In practice, you are only required to answer
the questions they ask. The traditional way is of course to
fill in a proposal form for your insurer, either via an
intermediary or with a direct insurer. This will contain a
declaration at the end that confirms you have given them the
correct information. It also provides them with your signature
to meet certain Data Protection Act(s) requirements.
Most insurers now subscribe to CUE. (Claims and
Underwriting Exchange) This is a national computer database
where almost every household (and motor) claim in the country
has been recorded for many years.
So, for example, you can't take out a policy
with different companies, claim on them all and make money out
of your insurance.
If you do not disclose to them the truth when
you answer a question on the proposal form, you could have your
claim refused or your cover made 'void', i .e. the contract
never existed.
So don't conveniently forget about those three
little claims you made last year on your last policy! You will
be found out.
Many insurers now just ask you some questions
on the telephone. They will record the conversation and the
recording constitutes a written proposal. So whatever answer
you give, must be the truth. Otherwise the same thing will
happen.
Internet sales (at the time of writing) are now
really taking off, so much so that several of the major UK
insurers such as The Prudential and The Pearl have disbanded
their direct sales force. In many ways, home insurance is the
ideal product to buy via the internet . If you buy tangible
goods over the internet, you can't see them, feel them, try
them out before you buy. They have to be sent to you by a
traditional mode of transport. With home insurance, the
potential is there for the whole contract - your proposal, your
policy, your schedule - to be downloaded to you and saved on
your computer.
Q: What was the cause of the
fire?
A: Wife trying to murder me.
Q: What have you done to prevent a
reoccurrence?
A: Divorced my wife. |
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Extracts taken from actual claim
forms submitted to
a number of UK car insurance companies |
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