Broker Direct PLC insurance asked us if we had the Home Buyers report – they meant the survey that we had done.
We provided it to them for transparency, despite the fact that it says it is not to be used by third parties, in the hope they would see that it said that there are no signs of any underpinning.
What happened next is beyond belief.
The survey says, “I was advised that the property has previously been underpinned”, it also says, “No signs of significant movement was noted during the inspection to suggest that movement is present to the property and no signs of any underpinning was noted.“
Guess which of those quotes were used by Broker Direct PLC insurance to justify voiding our insurance contract. Yes, it was the former statement.
They took no notice of the rest of the survey. They were simply implying that when we took the insurance out we stated that there is no underpinning and therefore were dishonest.
We are both employed in senior roles and work, as professionals, in trusted positions. We carry out work diligently and made as much effort as possible to answer the insurance application questions as correctly as possible.
I have mentioned that we found out that there was work carried out at the time the record on the council’s database refers to, but it was not for underpinning.
We sent as much information as possible to Broker Direct PLC insurance to clarify the context of those conversations that took place, however they did not budge on their decision. We even informed them that they are not entitled to use the Home Buyers report to substantiate their decision and they still did not budge. They were pinning so much on what I had supposedly said to both surveyors. I requested a copy of the survey they had done. They did not provide it.
But wait! The insurance policy can only be taken out by one person, which was Mrs Walton. Mrs Walton had not spoken to any surveyors and stated clearly that I had never stated that there is underpinning on our property and that, actually, I was a little confused as to what underpinning is…this is true, there was some work done to the brickwork in our garage which I had recently become confused about and thought was underpinning . The work was to repair cracks caused after the MOD changed the garage roof from a flat roof to a pitched roof before they sold the properties off. It turns out that underpinning is not that!
Mrs Walton explained that to them.
Then Broker Direct PLC insurance changed their tune a little, claiming that we were mistaken when we completed the security questionnaire.
The actual words used were, “Ignorance is not an excuse”.
How could they consider that we were mistaken without carrying out a physical examination of the property?
Broker Direct PLC voided our insurance because there is underpinning on our property with NO evidence that there is and despite overwhelming evidence that there is not.
They did not just void our building insurance. They also voided our contents insurance, leaving us with no insurance whatsoever.