Any Home Insurance Experts

A question about : Any Home Insurance Experts

We've always been above board and honest with all our household dealing but last year we took out a new home insurance with Swinton (buildings and contents). I thought I was answering honestly when I filled the form in and said we hadn't had any claims in the past 3 years.

However, we have just put a claim in because we have a water leak under the floor in the hall. We had previously claimed for a leak in the hall which our insurance at the time put right. It has now come to light that it was in 2012 and so under the 3 years. I honestly thought it was longer ago than that and had also forgotten that we had gone through the insurance to put it right anyway!

Ive just had a call from Swinton asking why I didn't disclose this claim at the time of taking their insurance out and so I said I honestly thought it was longer than 3 years ago and couldn't remember that we'd claimed on the insurance. They said they would ring back in 2 weeks once they'd assessed our claim.

Im really worried now that they'll think its some kind of fraud and that, of course, they won't pay for our claim either. Does anyone know what is likely to happen now? Will this invalidate our insurance altogether? I can't believe I made this mistake anyway - Im usually so on-the-ball with this kind of thing. Help!

Best answers:

• If they accept its an error rather than fraud then they will charge you an admin fee to note the claim and back date it to inception and any additional premium the insurer sees fit based on the fact this should have been factored in from day 1
• The outcome depends on their take on this, and could range from rejecting your claim and voiding your policy to simply asking you to pay the difference in premium you owe them.
  Wait for their response and take it from there.
• I was with Direct Line for the 3 years previous to this and it actually states on both Direct Line renewal schedules for the 2 years after our previous claim that we have no claims for contents for the past 5 and 6 years! Ive emailed these documents to our present insurer to show that this is where I got the information from. Surely if you've made a claim which was accepted and paid out their renewal shouldn't state that we have been claim free for years?
  Im hoping this will suffice to show that we're not trying to defraud anyone and that it was a genuine mistake that Direct Line made!
• Ultimately its your responsibility to remember when a claim was however, as you say, it may help substantiate that it was an innocent error.
  Different insurers/ brokers will take different approaches to these things however being realistic it is difficult for them to actually prove that you intentionally lied to them rather than just forgot. Whilst many may block you initially a significant proportion will back down later for something like this (obv different if you "forget" to declare you've had 4 heart attacks and you answer "no" to if you've ever had any heart problems etc)
  Beyond the delay whilst they investigate the real risk would come from if they wouldnt have offered terms had they known about the claim. Doesnt result in the policy being voided for fraud but doesnt leave you in a good place either