It’s officially summer but not in New Malden. I got home at 7pm last night in near darkness and pouring rain. Normally, closing the front door behind me and casting off my rain gear is enough to bring some relief. But not this time. The rain followed me in.
As I walked into my kitchen I was greeted by an all too familiar sound – drip, drip, drip. My leak is back. The long story cut short is that water is getting in where the single-storey kitchen extension joins the old back wall – and not for the first time.
I’ve previously spent more than £2,000 trying to put it right. The fix lasted a while but, now that’s no longer the case, I’m in a dilemma. Do I start the tedious process of begging local builders who are up to their necks in loft extensions to come take a look at my little leak? Or do I bite the bullet and call my buildings insurer and let them sort it out?
On the one hand, getting the insurer involved would save me time and hassle and make use of those premiums I’ve been paying. On the other, I’ve got no idea how much the problem would cost to fix on the open market or how much next year’s premium will go up by. So I’d have no way of knowing which solution is the more cost effective.
Of course, I don’t want my premium to rise but neither do I want to keep throwing away good money after bad with another temporary fix. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some way of working out how the costs actually compare by getting an indicative quote for next year’s insurance premium based on the size of a claim made?
At the moment, you can’t even easily use a comparison site to search for quotes for new policies based on whether you’ve made a hypothetical claim or not. They all ask for stacks of information to generate personalised quotes.
I asked Gocompare’s press office to number crunch to compare costs. Based on buildings and contents cover for a three-bed semi worth £170,000 with £50,000 of contents cover, when declaring a previous claim for escape of water causing £5,000 of damage, the average premium from the five cheapest providers came in at £109.80 a month, less than a £10 difference compared to the £100.07 for the premium based on no claim having been made.
While the figures may suggest that some claims only make a tiny change to premiums, they only tell a small part of the story. What we really need as a basis for sound comparison is data from insurers showing how they responded to actual customers after they made a claim. And surprise, surprise – they won’t spill the beans.
Disclosure would be a massive help to all insurance customers – especially motorists. Last weekend, a friend of mind made the arguably stupid decision to visit the local B&Q superstore, home to one of the most complicated car parks known to man. The driver in front of him got a bit stressed and reversed into my friend’s Fiat. And that was the end of a headlamp.
The offending driver was extremely apologetic, said he’d never had a collision in his decades’ of driving and was terrified of losing his no-claims discount. These can cut premiums by up to 75 per cent, according to Confused.com. With the discount having him over a barrel, he did what most decent people in the same position would do. He gave my friend his contact details and said he would pay for the damage without involving his insurer. My friend got a local garage to sort out the problem for £320 and yesterday the man who bumped into him called round to give him the money.
While a satisfactory outcome for my friend, it confirmed what I already thought. Insurers are putting us customers in a difficult position whenever we may have need to make a claim. By withholding indicative information about how much claims affect future premiums, they’re forcing us to take unnecessary risks and bear unnecessary costs.
For instance, I could quite easily hand over another £1,000 to get my leak fixed, only for it to come back again (finding a builder who will guarantee their work and is willing to take on the job in my area is akin to finding hens’ teeth). My friend had no way of making sure the cause of his B&Q woes would actually pay up, other than going down the small claims court route. And the chap who collided with him had no real way to verify the cost of the repair bill, other than take the word of the mechanic who could have told him anything over the phone.
As things currently stand, all customers can do is try to work out whether the cost of going it alone exceeds the excess we have to pay and the threat of rising premiums. It’s pure guess work and the fear is, I bet, saving insurers millions of pounds every year in unmade claims.
Maybe I’m being cynical and insurers are actually much more generous and understanding than I give them credit for – but without disclosing the facts, we’ll never know.
Oh, before I forget, let me finish with a word of caution. If you decide to go it alone and not claim for an issue that leads to a bigger problem that you later claim for and your insurer finds out you knew about it, it could refuse to pay out.
Laura Whitcombe is knowledge and product editor at ThisisMoney.co.uk.
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