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We’ve got you covered What has a missing finger, a bakery shop front, an aeronautical machine and a murder got in common? The correct insurance cover, and Kate Maxim went to find out more
W
E ALL PAY money each month for our cars, house, business and travel insurance in the hope we’ll never have to use it. So what is the point of insurance? I put that question to Simon Drysdale, director of Hallsdale Insurance Brokers Ltd. n a nutshell, it’s for peace of mind. or a small amount of money, paid monthly or yearly, you transfer a ris from one party to another so that you’re not in the situation where you’re going to lose everything. Your house insurance may cost anything from per year, depending on how big your house, is but compare that with the cost of rebuilding your house of , to £2 million. A house is probably the biggest purchase any of us are going to ma e so why wouldn’t you want to protect it? ‘Insurance is always about putting you bac to where you were before the incident. No less than what you had and not
‘betterment.’ Although if legislation changes and we aim to build more e cient houses, then you do get better. I know situations where someone has paid their premium each month and then found out that their insurance wasn’t valid when it came to the claim. Why would that be? ‘The devil is in the detail with regards to the wording. It’s very important the wording fits your circumstances to ma e sure a claim is paid. e’re an independent bro er so we wor for the client to find the most appropriate policy for their circumstance. e ascertain where the house is, what type and the goods within it. e find out the full circumstances of the individual in person or over the phone. The postcode is important as it may show if they live in a ood or subsidence area. e ta e all that information and present it to a number of insurers and get the best protection for our
customers. rice is important, but it’s not the be all or end all. f, for e ample, someone has a collection of records or teddy bears, normal household insurance wouldn’t necessarily cover that properly. When we’ve had the discussion about the collection then we build that into the policy and ma e sure the insurance company nows about it. hat’s often the issue with claims: the insurance company don’t now so when a loss ad uster finds something he’s not e pecting, the insurer may use that to say they’re not covering all or part of the claim. The Insurance Act 2015 changed everything so now the onus is bac on the individual to ma e a fair and reasonable presentation of facts to the insurer. If you use an online site you often don’t spea to someone. Unfortunately there’s a huge problem with under-insurance where people loo round their house and say
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