Beware of something fishy in the small print

IT was one of those precious, idyllic mornings with nothing to do but savour breakfast and the Sunday papers – until the aquarium crashed to the floor in a sickening splintering of glass.

A tsunami was unleashed. My wife scooped flailing neons, black mollies, skirted tetras and platies from the sodden floor and hustled them into a makeshift fish trauma centre in the bath.

Meanwhile, I was lifting vinyl LPs and the wiring from my stereo above the deluge’s high-water mark.

The fish survived but their modest tank and the living room carpet were goners.

Money was tight all those years ago, but we had insurance and had even paid extra to cover the tank, specifically listing it on the household contents policy. What could go wrong? Yes, the insurance man confirmed, the aquarium was covered. But what had failed was not the tank but the unit it was on. No cover. No payout.

It was a sharp introduction to the world of small print. You do your level best to get things right but Section 943, Clause 676, sub-section 225.3, triumphs.

THIS week I renewed my car insurance. The vehicle is a year older – and so worth less – yet my premium is up a whopping £171.53. Thanks to a Mail campaign, I know how much it has jumped as firms are now obliged to show the new premium next to the old. Sneakily, they didn’t do that in the past, exploiting customer inertia to coin it in.

And I’m far from alone paying out more.

Confused.com say more expensive repairs and changes to injury compensation have bumped the average premium up 16 per cent and most of us might be paying a record £1,000 for fully comp next year.

I’ve had car insurance run-ins before now. A company with a jolly nautical image refused to take me on as I was a journalist. ‘We don’t deal with the entertainment industry,’ they declared haughtily from the poop deck.

The first motor I bought new was a scarlet Alfa Romeo but it got wrapped into a ball of scrap on a deceptive Fife bend one snowy night.

It was one year and three days since the glorious moment I’d driven that Italian beauty from the showroom.

Had it been under a year, my insurers would have put me behind the wheel of a brand new Alfa. Instead I got the dreaded ‘market value’.

That meant I got the price of a second-hand Alfa. Depreciation left me thousands down.

An elderly neighbour suffered a small fire just before Christmas a couple of years ago.

To lend a hand we got in touch with her insurers. Given her obvious distress, how quickly could they get an assessor out?

I was left in no doubt that such a question was breathtakingly impertinent, verging on the outrageous. Didn’t I know how busy they were? The very cheek of it and at this time of year too!

Even when insurers try to make us love them, it can go awry.

My car was once damaged while parked and, in an increasingly common annoyance, the culprit drove off. I had to claim myself.

Customer services made several phone calls to see how things were. I said repeatedly no one was hurt – I wasn’t even in the car at the time.

And I gently explained that I was also now on holiday and that they were phoning me every day at 4am Los Angeles time…

I couldn’t countenance the Humza Yousaf method, though.

Our hopeless Transport Minister has a criminal conviction for driving without insurance.

I think those of us who pay a king’s ransom for cover, do the right thing whether it eventually pays back or not, can regard that as a big deal.

In my book, a man who commits a crime directly related to his political brief should leave his post – in a taxi, not at the wheel of his uninsured car.