House Contents and Laptop?

TBirdUK

TBirdUK

TBirdUK

Soldato
Joined
9 Jul 2005
Posts
2,647
Location
High Wycombe
Spoke to my insurance company (through Lloyds) before Xmas as, whilst hoovering (never let a man do it!!) I managed to pull the laptop off the table and it then wouldnt boot!

Claimed on house contents insurance, laptop got picked up and sent to a computer company to repai/replace if not repairable. Heres where it goes wrong - ring them up today and they say that they have to have thier (insurance) tech people look at the report from the repar company as the fault may have been from before it was dropped!!!! Now only thing I can think of is that they think this as I opened up the laptop to see if it was just the power connector broken in the fall (which I would have had fixed myself to save hassle and premium rise).

To me the laptop was broken in an accident (worked fine, used every day, knocked off table, not working!) hence claiming off accidental damage insurance, does anyone know where I stand if they insist it was a fault before it was dropped?

I am not trying to scam them and all I want is a repair not a replace - where do I stand?
 
Wait until you've got an actual problem before trying to solve it.

80% chance they'll just fix/replace the thing. Wait until that doesn't happen before worrying about it!

They're obviously protecting themselves against fraud. If they dont' pay -- go to citizen's advice they'll sort you out ..
 
There are so many scams re laptops that they have to do something, as said don't worry about it until a problem arises

unless it is a high end laptop then the excess and higher future premiums may not make it worth claiming anyway
 
Good idea, normally I would, but I would like to be prepared in case, when they phone me tomorrow, they have questions/issues. Ringing them back is a pain and costs a fortune from my mobile.
 
well got some info off them, their computer maintenance people say that its a short in the motherboard that can be fixed, costing £290!!!, but that may not have been caused by the impact!! So now they are "looking into it". For ^%$^% sake, it worked, fell off table then didnt work = damaged in fall!

I know there are some scams out there but I have been paying contents insurance for 15+years without a claim and now when I need it they question it! I have told them that a mobo could short for any number of reasons but in this case it was because it fell off a table - lets hope this doesn't get stupid! Where do I stand with this, how can I sort this out without too much pain?
 
i work for a company that inspects/fixes/repairs pc/laptops etc for most of the major insurance companies and im afraid if it gets repudiated (sp?) theres usually not much you can do mate :(

you dont need to worry about opening up the computer as that doesnt affect anything in a fraud inspection report. you may be into upgrading/modding and opening the case is your choice (unless warranty is in place). Usually you get pulled for claiming for an impact and then theres liquid found under the keyboard for example..so to be honest you should be fine! It could just well be they wasnt sure of your account so have put you at that stage to screen the claim.


really, dont worry :P
 
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TBirdUK said:
well got some info off them, their computer maintenance people say that its a short in the motherboard that can be fixed, costing £290!!!, but that may not have been caused by the impact!! So now they are "looking into it". For ^%$^% sake, it worked, fell off table then didnt work = damaged in fall!

I know there are some scams out there but I have been paying contents insurance for 15+years without a claim and now when I need it they question it! I have told them that a mobo could short for any number of reasons but in this case it was because it fell off a table - lets hope this doesn't get stupid! Where do I stand with this, how can I sort this out without too much pain?
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what model is it mate?? that sounds extreemly expensive.. and an impact could easilty cause a short on the mb if components are knocked/moved..

you know the name of the company??
 
laptop was £400, a phillips x58 and the company is allianz on behalf of Lloyds, cant remember the name of the computer company but it was in Cornwall/Devon I think!
 
TBirdUK said:
laptop was £400, a phillips x58 and the company is allianz on behalf of Lloyds, cant remember the name of the computer company but it was in Cornwall/Devon I think!
Click to expand...

Worst case scenario = they don't pay out
You dispute the case and go down their complaints route.
They still refuse to pay out and give you a final response.
You say I will go to the ombudsman.
That's where something funny happens, because you just said your laptop is worth £400.00. Whenever a customer goes to the ombudsman, the insurance company must legally pay a £500.00 fee for the case to be investigated. Therefore 9/10 times if a claim is worth less than this fee they will ALWAYS pay the claim.
Therefore worst case scenario you get nothing. But lloyds end up paying more than they would've if they played ball and I hoped that's some satisfaction. Going to to the FSA is your right, so make sure you don't treat it lightly!
 
Rotty said:
There are so many scams re laptops that they have to do something, as said don't worry about it until a problem arises

unless it is a high end laptop then the excess and higher future premiums may not make it worth claiming anyway
Click to expand...

i got a laptop replaced before and my premium never budged.

same with a £3k flood claim. :confused:
 
I've only ever made one claim on my insurance in all the years I've been paying, just luck I guess? Two years back Tower unit went bang when a power surge caused by e-on affected 3 different postcodes. I phoned my company, [Direct Line] explained what had happened and they said they would have someone pick it up the following day for repair, if beyond repair they would issue a voucher to go choose a new tower from 'the' well known PC shop!

I explained it was custom built from local dealer so they asked me if I could drop it in that afternoon and get the dealer to contact them after checking it out.

Later same day they phoned me to let me know dealer had written it off due to age and damage and they had cleared him to build me new tower unit to value of £800 and would I like to phone dealer to let him know of any particular specs I wanted within that price.

Two days later I picked up my new tower unit and dealer-builder had been requested to invoice insurance company direct for payment. :)
 
Well it look like I'm going to have to dispute it - they have said that the computer engineer has stripped the laptop right down and looked over it with a magnifying glass and can find no evidence of impact damage, no blown fuses, caps etc!!!!!!

As if he would find evidence! What a pain and a delay now - I cant believe that an engineer would say that! There doesnt have to be evidence for it to have happened, it could be anything broken by even a small impact and unless he has identified the fault and shown how it has happened there is no way he could rule out impact!!


rant over!
 
a quick question, the maintenance company stated no blown caps or fuses - are there any fuses on a laptop motherboard?
 
I don't understand their attitude on this TBirdUK. Surely if your laptop is covered by contents insurance and is now damaged, accidentally or otherwise then they should be prepared to pay to have fixed or replaced?

Its not as if you have broken the PC some weeks/months back and just now taken out insurance and trying to back claim. You have in fact been paying your insurance for some time and now your laptop has broken and your making a perfectly legitimate claim to have them cover the cost of repair/replacement.

If the technician says he can't find damage due to being dropped then what reason is he giving for it not working? Also if your operating system is OEM then that too should also be paid for as part of the replacement cost, mine was and it was the insurance company who pointed this out to me saying not to forget this when pricing the new build. :confused:
 
Rotty said:
component failure I would assume
Click to expand...

That's simply guessing, there's no proof, it would literally be the customers word against the repair company who will be able to offer no evidence other than "well the case isn't damaged" which wouldn't happen anyway if it only fell a short distance. Seeing as the customer hasn't claimed in over ten years I'd be furious if the claim was rejected. I've had iMacs and iBooks dropped by pupils onto concrete when I worked in schools which didn't have any marks, entirely depends how they land.
 
Lloyds Tbs Insurance - how I loathe them.
They refused to pay out when we were burgled THEN they refused to pay out when the man slipped in the snow and broke a camera lens.
The first time, we let it go - it was *possible* that the reason they gave was legitimate. The second time, no way!
We changed companies.
G'luck
 
You could always try going to the Ombudsman if you don't get anywhere, got Endsleigh to pay up sharpish for my wife's written off car once they got involved.
 
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