Business insurance is needed in your business and its some case depending on your services or product or business activities you legally need to be insurance such as if you have staff you need Employer's liability insurance and if you run an event outside you need public liability insurance.
Choosing an insurer for your business it is best to shop around and compare quotes, how long they been in business and if they are a good fit for your business. Some insurance comes with an excess fee when you make a claim ranging from £50, £250 up to £500 the excess you are responsible to pay for the first part of your claim and the insurance the remaining amount. They will usually tell you the amount of your cover and this amount is the maximum amount they would cover you.
Most insurance would inform you when you claim that you are responsible for the excess fee and will require you to pay this fee before processing your claim. They would be asked you if you want to go ahead if they are accepting your claim. Even if the excess fee is written in your policy document and your cover amount is too. Allowing the opportunity to make an informed decision as you might not want to continue your claim if you do not want to pay the excess, and also to make you aware that you need to pay part of your claim prior to process your claim.
It is a legal requirement to do so but some insurance forget it like it recently happened to us. We claim on our insurance for our business equipment to be repaired and the customer's officer was so rude to us that I made a complaint. To say the least my complaint was taken casually and they contacted to tell me they will accept my claim part of the resolution of my complaint, they informed me that their contractor will collect my defective good and informed me that they received it, them the contractor contact me informed me that my device good is repairable and that they will tell the insurance and the excess.
The insurance agreed on the repair, they repair my defective good then I asked my insurance when my item will be returned. They asked the contractor to contact me and they say to me your good will be returned to you when you pay the £250 excess I said what it's a complaint and I was not told that I have an excess to pay by my insurance they replied can you pay that money now I replied no and added I am covered he explained that I have to pay £250 and the insurance will pay the rest and added if you cannot pay the insurance might absorb the fee and charge you higher premium.
I was livid I email my insurance and told them they mislead me by omission and action and I refused to pay they never told me that I am responsible to pay £250 excess and made me think that I am not liable to pay as they deal with my claim part of my complaint and give me a resolution letter no mentioned of me having to pay £250 excess. They've agreed with the repair and told the contractor to go ahead with repairing my goods.
Plus emailed me their agreement to instruct their contractor to repair my goods no mention that I need to pay the excess severals email no mentioned, several phone calls no mention of any excess to pay.
Wouldn't you think you do not have to pay any excess to have your goods repair under your insurance? It exactly what I thought rightly so too. Hence my shock when the contractor asking for the £250 excess payment and say he would not return my good until I pay.
Sometimes it is not what actually said that's the problem. Sometimes it's what been left out that the issue. The customer's regulation offer protection against traders who are economical with the truth, or miss out key information that you might need to make an informed decision.
Traders must ensure that the information is provided in a timely manner - and not so late that it is of no use to you. A trader will be committing an offence if it does any of the following below which is constructed as misleading by omission this is what my insurance did to me.
Misleading Omissions means omits material information that the average person needs, according to the context, to make an informed decision about a transaction. Hides or provide material information in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or ultimately manner. Fails to identify that a transaction has a profit-making motive(where this isn't already apparent from the context)
Misleading action is an offence under the consumer's regulations for traders to use misleading, or unhand tactics to get you to part with your cash or make some other transactional decision that you would not otherwise have made.
The fact that my insurance never told me to pay the excess part of my claim and it is their contracting company who is claiming the excess and informed me to pay now or my goods will not be returned. My insurance misleads me by omission and action, therefore, breaking the customer's law regulations.
I have informed them of this and they currently looking into their inaction and will get back to us as I informed them that we are prepared to go to the ombudsman if no joy takes them to court because they removed my right of information. We take our business very seriously at Girlfridayz and they are holding my goods until my second stage complaint is dealt with.
It might be in your policy document but the law state clearly that you should be informed meaning in writing clearly and verbally clearly as you cannot assume that the person knows or even read the information and they had me on the phone on many occasions and emailed me about my claim but could not tell me you are responsible to pay for £250 excess before we process your claim. I would have said I do not want to claim as my good could be repaired for cheap by an independent person they remove this right to me and repaired my good and made their contractor tell me to pay to get it back that not right dodgy practices and illegal.
Be careful when choosing insurance for your business we are with Simply Business and we are leaving after this matter is resolved due to shifty practices and frankly, we do not recommend them as when I told them they have broken the customer's law they play like stupid or they truly unaware of the customer's regulation legislation of the UK it is available online too and told me no law was broken you just unhappy about the £250 excess, then they said and yes your are our customers as if it is just dawn on them.
Please comment I would love to know your view on my recent experience.