Tilly thought that because her earlier claim had been many years before, her home insurer had no right to cancel her policy.
What happened
When Tilly took out her home insurance policy, she was asked if she had made any claims in the previous five years. She said she had made one, after a storm about a year before, and went on to renew her policy.
Later, when she made a new claim for fire damage, her insurer cancelled her policy and declined the claim.
Tilly called the insurance firm who told her insurer it had discovered she’d made a second small claim five years before for escape of water. She’d never mentioned this claim. The insurer said that if she had, it wouldn’t have offered her any cover in the first place.
Tilly thought this was unfair. Her second claim had been more than five years before and she hadn’t thought affect her new policy.
Unhappy with the insurer’s response to her complaint, she came to us.
What we said
We checked and discovered that Tilly’s escape of water claim was still live.
Tilly had also been given a copy of the information she’d provided when she took the policy out, when she’d been asked to tell the insurer if anything was wrong or had changed. This only mentioned the storm damage claim.
Looking at the evidence, we agreed with Tilly’s insurer that she hadn’t taken reasonable care to represent her claim history correctly. She was wrong to assume the escape of water claim was more than five years before without checking.
We also confirmed, based on available guidelines and documentation, that Tilly’s insurer wouldn’t have offered cover if it had known about her second claim.
We thought Tilly’s insurer was acting in line with the Consumer Insurance Disclosure and Representations (CIDRA) Act 2012 when it cancelled her policy. So we didn’t uphold Tilly’s complaint.