Insurer won’t pay for broken cooker

Our cooker failed nearly six months ago and, after various telephone calls searching for a repairer, I agreed to insure it with Domestic & General at a cost of £186.

This was on the basis that it would repair it, or if this was not possible provide an equivalent replacement on a like-for-like basis.

After a month of visits by maintenance men, it was established that the cooker could not be economically repaired.

I then received a letter from Domestic & General advising me that it was cancelling the policy with no replacement cooker.

I tried to call it but could not get a response. So I wrote saying that its position was unacceptable.

After living for a month without a main oven, which had not been easy, I bought a new cooker in a sale.

It was better than my old one but I noted that there was an equivalent cooker in the shop to the one I’d had at a cost of £744. RI, HERTS

You then received a contradictory letter from Domestic & General telling you that the cooker would be replaced after all.

After various phone calls it was resolved that Domestic & General had made a mistake with its original letter.

It offered a cash settlement, but the £499 figure it came up with was based on a cooker that was considerably inferior to the one that had failed.

You tried hard to persuade it to change its mind but couldn’t.

Further to my involvement, Domestic & General accepted that the comparison used had not been reasonable and paid £770, plus a further £100 for goodwill.

It offered to cover the new cooker with a Domestic & General plan for a full year free of charge.

You say that the new cooker came with a five- year guarantee, meaning that further insurance is unnecessary.

A spokesman for Domestic & General said: “We apologise to Mr I for the inconvenience that was caused by a number of administrative errors.”

You say you are pleased that the matter is now finally settled, although it would have been much better if the process had not taken three months. have twice made temporary repairs and told me that a new cable affixed to the pole is required and that the matter would be put in hand.

So far I have had no joy and the temporary repair has given me a very slow internet download speed of 0.6Mb/s, which is much less than before the fault occurred.

I have been getting nowhere talking to a BT computer. RM, STAFFS

After I approached Openreach a spokesman said: “We are sorry to hear that Mr M is experiencing slow broadband speeds.

“Unfortunately his home is more than four kilometres from our exchange building and broadband speeds do tend to slow down over such long distances.

“We believe this is the underlying issue, rather than any problem with the overhead cable connecting his home, but one of our engineers is investigating to check whether there are any other issues that might be affecting his service.”

Openreach suggested that you consider switching to fibre broadband, which it said was available in your area from a number of suppliers.

The company added that this would give you an estimated download speed of between 68Mb/s and 80Mb/s.

You say that, further to my becoming involved, a

new cable to the telephone pole has now been installed.

The broadband speed is back to what it was before the problem started, which is good enough for you.