This should be a very short post, since I live in Queensland and most insurance companies acted like complete tossers during the dreadful floods of 2011. 'Oh flood, sorry, you're not covered for water coming into your house unless it is from a river overflowing etc'
We were lucky and live in a flood free area. Still, our house and contents premiums went up by 30%. God forbid they should dip into any reserves - everyone has to pay to keep the directors pockets as full of coin as possible. My elderly dad had the same problem. I rang up his insurer to enquire and got the usual drone telling me about the floods but I asked when was the last time he had made a claim was and it was 1990. So at MY suggestion, they gave him a loyalty discount. Tossers I tell you.
Anyhoo, our pool filter fused just before Christmas. Smoke and everything. The lovely pool man came over (I like to call him Jorge), they replaced it with a neat $1000 model, and said not to worry you can claim it on your insurance. Tops, I thought.
They sent me a letter stating that they had replaced it due to fusion, so I called the insurance people. 'Oh dear' the broker said. 'You'll never be able to change from Lumley insurance now.' Of course I asked why. 'Well, you would have to disclose your claims history and you've made a claim in each year for the past three years'. 'Wot, I said, outraged. 'A pool filter, a camera and an iPhone? Not one of those things equalled the amount of premiums we have paid each year - so the trade balance works in their favour. Surely you can't be serious.'
And this is what she actually said:
IT MIGHT BE BETTER NOT TO MAKE A CLAIM FOR THIS ONE AND THEN YOUR PREMIUMS WON'T GO UP BY MUCH NEXT YEAR EITHER
So that's the secret people - pay them your money, don't make any claims if god forbid you lose something or you fuse something expensive. If you read the fine print, you'll probably find that there is a tiny little clause somewhere drafted by some blood sucking lawyer where they say they will in fact not pay you any money at all unless they really have to and then they will make it as difficult as possible.
And on that note I did get the forms to put in a claim, and there is a whole page of questions Jorge has to answer about the old filter which has gone to the dump.
AMFYOYO
