Abul’s insurer has refused to accept his claim following the theft of a quad bike from his property.
What happened
Late one night, thieves broke into Abul’s garage and stole his off-road quad bike. Abul had CCTV images of the theft and promptly gave them to the police whilst at the same time he claimed for the loss on his home insurance policy.
The insurer declined the claim because the quad bike is a motorised vehicle. Abul was disappointed by the insurer’s outcome stating he’d done everything he could to protect his property and engaged the police immediately. Feeling it was unfair, Abul referred a complaint to us.
What we said
When considering complaints about declined claims such as this, we first look to establish whether it’s an insurable event. In this case, we were satisfied it was as the quad bike was a personal possession of Abul’s and was stolen from his property, so we agreed with Abul that the theft was covered.
We then looked at what exclusion the insurer was applying and its reasons for applying it. In Abul’s case, the insurer referred to the following:
“We will not cover motorised vehicles, aircraft, boats, jet skis, caravans, trailers and the parts, spares and accessories of any of these”.
The policy defined motorised vehicles as:
- “Any electrically or mechanically powered vehicle, other than:
- vehicles used only as domestic gardening equipment within the home;
- vehicles designed to help disabled people (as long as the vehicles are not registered for road use);
- golf carts and trolleys;
- toys and models remotely controlled by a pedestrian;
- electrically assisted pedal cycles”
So in this case, whilst we sympathised with Abul’s situation, we didn’t think the insurer had unfairly applied this exclusion as written in the policy because we were satisfied a quad bike fell under the definition of a motorised vehicle. Abul hadn’t provided any evidence to suggest the quad bike was used for domestic gardening and due to its high-speed it didn’t comfortably fit under the definition of a toy.