YOU HAVE YOUR SAY
EVERY week, Money Mail receives hundreds of your letters about our stories. Here are some from our story about how one insurer refused to pay a family’s £2,000 claim when they were burgled abroad because the thieves hadn’t used force or violence to enter the property:
HOLIDAY INSURER MAY REFUSE YOUR CLAIM EVEN AFTER A BREAK-IN
IT’S like the time we had stuff stolen from our hire car in the Canaries. We went to the police and got all the paperwork, then I put in a claim and was told ‘the car had been left unattended’. If it had been ‘attended’, it wouldn’t have been broken into. O. W., Milton Keynes. INSURERS should be forced to publish statistics that show how many claims are successful based on each sector. R. T., Oxford. THEY will pay if you are willing to pursue them. Twice over the past six years we’ve had claims rejected and twice we have the decisions reversed. Harass them with calls, emails, letters and texts. Contact the media and newspaper finance pages. You have to be a nuisance. P. W., Perth. THE issue is with the police report, not the insurance company — which has only the report to go on. The couple did not know the Spanish report was incorrect. Hopefully the ombudsman will help them. R. P., Berkshire. HOLIDAY apartments in Spain are notorious for break-ins. I owned an apartment in a block where criminals simply used a credit card to slip the lock. We tried it on our own apartment, it took seconds. A. W., Hampshire. THE problem is that often people never bother to read policies and are naive enough to think all eventualities will be covered. W. P., Lancashire. PERHAPS if the entire act were recorded on CCTV and the suspect was wearing a mask and carrying a bag marked ‘Swag’, insurers would have to pay up. D. S., Tenerife. ÷ WRITE to Tony Hazell at Ask Tony, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email — please include your daytime phone number, postal address and a separate note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Tony Hazell. We regret we cannot reply to individual letters. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.