When he tried to make a claim on his insurance, Anthony’s insurer told him his policy didn’t cover rental properties.
What happened
Anthony bought a home emergency policy to cover his rental property. When his tenant called one morning to tell him the boiler was broken, he contacted his insurer immediately to make a claim.
But the insurer declined his claim, saying Anthony’s policy didn’t cover rental properties.
Anthony said this was unfair because it hadn’t been made clear to him that landlords weren’t covered when he bought the policy. He felt the policy had been mis-sold and complained to the insurer.
The insurer responded by telling Andrew he’d been given all the policy documents, as well as 14 days to change his mind after he bought the policy.
Unhappy with this response, Anthony contacted us.
What we said
We looked at the policy documents to see if Anthony’s claim could have been covered. We found that the policy didn’t cover landlords at all. We thought this was significant and should have been highlighted to Anthony when he bought the policy.
We asked for a copy of the sales call recording, the sales script and the policy documents. The sales script had a section advising the agent to run through significant or unusual exclusions or limitations. But the policy term about landlords wasn’t highlighted to Anthony during the sales call.
The term about landlords was only mentioned once in the policy document and it wasn't highlighted or prominent. For all these reasons, we thought that the policy had been mis-sold.
We considered what Anthony would have done if the restriction had been highlighted. We were satisfied that he wouldn’t have bought the policy because it didn’t cover rental properties. We asked the insurer to refund Anthony’s premiums with interest.
Anthony had the emergency issue resolved by a friend, so he didn't need to recover costs by making a claim. This meant that it was reasonable for the insurer to refund his premiums w.
When he bought the policy, Anthony didn’t mention that he was a landlord and needed cover for a rental property. If he had mentioned this, we might have taken a firmer approach with the insurer.