My Mother has a Fully Comp Trade policy with Tradewise. I am a named driver on the policy as I sometime drive cars for her. Around a month ago a man came to view a car and during the process of the viewing he asked to hear the engine whilst it was running he simply drove away and stole the car. We reported this to the police straight away and the Insurance also. Trade wise have finally responded to say that they will not be paying anything towards this claim because if we refer to the insurance manual they don't cover for theft from intended purchase. I know there might not be much that we can do as it is written in black and white but if you can help in anyway that would be great thank you

Hi nicky

I think you need to put your case to them in writing, for the time being put aside what it says in the manual. See if the same exculsion applies to policies from other Insurance companies. When you allow someone to look at your car, you don't know there going to steal it, a theft is a theft. A bit of a sham policy.

If you didn't think it was unjust you wouldn't be here, so lets see what happens. The next complaint is to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Send the letters recorded.

http://www.biba.org.uk/ComplaintsandTracing.aspx

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html

Hi Nick

Have a read:- http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/1/keys-in-cars.htm

Hi All thanks for the quick response, I will get onto writing a letter ASAP. I have included a photo of the claim in their letter and the ref section in the manual. One of the stipulations they have included in their letter is worded differently in the manual, very badly in fact because they have missed the end of the sentence so it doesn’t actually mean anything it isn’t included on the following page either. The other stipulation is that they use the words "deception by a purported purchaser or agent " they have no definition of the words deception in there definitions section however I don’t believe there was any deception, the person simply stole the vehicle? I don’t know if these arguments would hold any water but just things that I thought of when I immediately noticed it

Hi Nick

Let us know what happens. And don't give up, looking at your last post, clearly their policy exclusions aren't clear, but they are unfair.

I'd go to the FOS now, start this moving. This could go either way, there wil be a lot of factors to look into, i.e. you say the engine was running, how did they see ? where was your mother, within a distance to stop the thief or 50 yards away.

Be prepared for a wait, also be prepared for possible dissapointment (sorry).

To your advantage, Tradewise are a pretty new set up, their wording may let them down compared o others out there.

Good luck

Hi All, Sorry I never updated this with the outcome, I tried to go via the FOS and they told us we didnt really have a case . Ah well you live and learn and dont ever use Tradewise

Tradewise will do ANYTHING to avoid paying out. We lost our car transporter due to theft and i took our claim to the ombusman, They ruled against us on the grounds that we never declared to tradewise that we had a car transporter. We told our broker Unicom, who are a sister company and share the same office building as Tradewise,But as Unicom failed to pass on this info,WE the paying public get shafted.

AVOID TRADEWISE AT ALL COSTS. YOUR COVER IS NOT WORTH THE PAPER ITS PRINTED ON