Problems with Churchill Home Contents Claim

[boredtotearsagain]

In the process of making a claim on my house insurance with churchill after approx 10 yrs of being with them.. Ive never made a claim on the house insurance even with my previous provider..

What a nightmare!

Our TV rather big expensive one... OH's pride and joy, got knocked over when taking the Xmas Decs down, When we bought the TV I rang the insurance company and had added to our policy as a special item as it was worth more than a £1000, in fact the RRP was £4999. So the TV was listed on insurance, model no, make etc, etc for about 7 years now.

When we rang them , they wanted photos, manuals, and orginal reciept.. problem was couldnt find orginal receipt, so send manual and several photos from over the years. they contacted us and basically said that if we could prove when we bought it and how much we paid, they werent going to complete are claim.

eventually I found a warrent cerficate, as we'd purchased extented warrenty and chruchill said that would do..

Weeks past, borrowed a portable TV and coffee table to put it on from friends to keep kids happy. baby loves trying to slide TV about on the table.. total nightmare

After several phone calls to them, was finally told they had instructed a local retailer to replace TV, hurray can now get rid of the broken one that been sat in the middle of the living room (too big to put it anywhere else)

We contacted retailer, who told us that they would be replacing ot with a different make TV as they one we have doesnt get made anymore. Ok that fine... until we saw it!!!!

It sits on a glass unit, and is so wobbly... ours is one big unit didnt worry about baby knocking into it. With this one, I worried that she'll put it over.
According to OH, it doesnt have the same amount of connections in the back as our old one, so we wont be able to connect everything into it, and concidering he is a hugh movie fan, with hunderds of videos, laserdiscs and DVD's, and will only play one format, so some of the american movies he has won't work, this has really cheesed him off. He's spent years building up this collection, and a fair old amount of money.

He asked the retailer if pioneer (the make of our orginal TV) do anything simialler, as apperently they generally have more imputs?? he said yes, a LCD or plasma or something, but we would have to pay the difference £600 + excess... WHAT! Having now looked at TV's on the Web, the one they are trying to replace ours with is just over £900, the pioneer one that we would have to pay towards is £1300... which is only £400 more so where he got £600 from I will never know!

I understand the electrical stuff has come down in price over the years, but I have been paying a premium to cover our TV, but feel know like they are to replace our TV with the cheapest available TV.

So what do I do? except what there offering? or do we let them thats not good enough?

having never made an insurance claim before, Im finding this a total farse.

Any advice would be great.. (sorry I waffled, but this has really got my goat)

[xrchris]

This is a common problem that can occur with electrical items and i was in fact raising this point with someone in our office this morning concerning laptops.

Unfortunately you need to do a little research here.

You need to get a starting point for negotiations so ask the insurer/supplier how they have confirmed the value of replacing your TV.

[Darkangelsdelite]

If you're not happy with the situation then you need to contact the claims dept and explain your situation. You have a new for old policy which would entitle you to a replacement item, or in this case, as near as they can get as your particular model isn't available anymore. Of the top of my head, Churchill claims use Empire direct for most of their electrical claims so may be worth seeing if they will agree to a settlement figure with you in vouchers that you can then use to purchase the TV you want, obviously if you want to go for something better than you'll need to pay the difference (insurance is only there to put you back in the same financial position before the claim).
If all else fails, read through your policy booklet, There's a section on page 27 under section 5 "settling disagreements" which may be of use.
IF you cant find your booklet then you can find one on the website here http://www.churchill.co.uk/pdf/home_policy.pdf.
Anything else you need, just give us a shout

DA.

[boredtotearsagain]

thanks from your replies....

spoke to churchill again, and explained that the TV they offered doesnt meet the spec of our one...and reminding them we have been paying a premium to cover the it, suddenly got the "let me speak to my manager" line, and hey presto got offered a completely different tv, which actually is really nice, and OH is happy with it.

Leaves me thinking that they will try pass of cheaper replacements if they can..

Thanks

[Darkangelsdelite]

No probs, glad you got it all sorted out in the end.