Insurance Invalid?

[SAMMY650]

Hi all,

I keep my bike in the underground carpark to my flat which has a roller shutter (floor to ceiling) and I have declared this to my insurance company, but some clever person keeps switching it off so it won't close :smt013
I've reported this many times to the maintainance company & the guy that regularly visits the flats to fix stuff, but all they've said is that they know someone keeps switching it off/interfering with it and that they are going to try and install cctv facing the off switch to catch who is doing it (it's probably some muppet that has lost their keyfob to get in!).

My question is..........does this effect my insurance? Would they say my insurance is invalid if my bike is stolen while the shutter is not working?

Thanks all

[lee67]

yes cos it aint secure is it;)

[yorkie_chris]

1) put a sign up above the switch asking people nicely not to switch it off as you do not like leaving your vehicle unsecured.
if this doesn't work move on to
2) Set yourself a camera up, find who it is, and arrange for their car to be nicked or vandalised.
I hear brake fluid makes a right mess of paint. I bet they have better ideas about security then :)

[G]

Wipe poo all over the off switch...
















Or just get the maintenance team to stick a secure box over the switch rather than letting every man and his dog have access to it.

[hindle8907]

but what if someone from in your block stole your bike and used their key fob to get out ? ;) ?

[speedplay]

Wipe poo all over the off switch...



Just sprayed tea through my nose :(

[SAMMY650]

The poo idea might work lmao.


I have other security on the bike (don't just rely on the shutter), if the worst happened do you think I'd be able to make a claim against the building maintainance company? Or shall i just tell insurance company now that the car park is not always secure??

[speedplay]

Take a claw hammer or super glue to the switch inside so that it doesnt work ;)

[G]

You could potentially persue them through small claims court for breach of contract as presumably you are paying rent for a 'secure' parking spot.

Would be alot of effort though.

[-Ralph-]

super glue to the switch

This works. Got fed up with all the women at work fiddling with the air conditioning. Thin ones arguing it was to cold and the fat ones getting all sweaty. The constant bitching was too much to bear. I have no idea who set it where they wanted it then superglued the buttons :smt102 :---), but the fat ladies are happy and the thin ones bought a jumper. I wear a suit jacket when in the office anyway.

[Milky Bar Kid]

Would only be invalid if you "knew" that the shutter was faulty if your bike got nicked....

[Bluepete]

Why ask us? We are a bunch of bikers, and I'm not sure anyone here is an insurance specialist (other than the armchair, "I can Google" experts)

The only people to ask are your underwriters.

[speedplay]

Why ask us?

For the same reason that people ask questions on legal, technical, building ect.

We all have different skill sets and experience.

I know of one or two on here that work in insurance.

[Neeja]

I'm not sure anyone here is an insurance specialist

Maybe not a specialist, but I work as an insurance claims investigator, so take this as a bit more useful than armchair google-fu...


Check your Ts+Cs. Firstly, a lot of insurance policies on vehicles state that they'll still cover you if kept somewhere other than the secure location that you've listed on your statement of fact, but you'll either need to pay an increased excess or pay additional premium up to the level at which you would've been covered (i.e., if in declaring that you're keeping the bike in a locked area you've saved £54.19 on your premium, they'll ask for the £54.19. It's much more common to go down the increased excess route, though, as it generally recoups more money for the company).

It would be very unusual for a company to have one set of Ts+Cs for people who keep their bikes on the street, and another for those keeping it in secure areas such as garages etc. If there is no specific exclusion in your Ts+Cs stating that if you're bike's stolen from your locked area while it isn't locked, then declining your claim gets a lot more complicated. If there *is* a specific exclusion in there that states you wouldn't be covered, it would need to be highlighted to you either at point-of-sale or in the Ts+Cs itself (by being in bold, boxed out etc.), else the insurance company runs the risk of having to pay out if you ever chose to complain to the FOS about it, as it's a very restrictive exclusion and therefore needs to be highlighted.

If your Ts+Cs don't make a mention of either of the above, then there are only two ways in which the insurance company can realistically decline your claim.

The first is by trying to prove negligence on your part. This is a complete minefield, as duty-of-care is a subjective rather than objective test, the meat of which is "did the insured see a risk in taking a course of action? If so, did they court this risk regardless of having identified it?" In this instance, yes, you have identified a risk. However, you're taking steps to try to avoid this risk, have additional security on the bike, and, in addition, you have no other reasonable place to keep the bike where the risk would be any lower than it is in the shuttered area. It's probably more likely to be stolen from the street, so even keeping it in a shuttered area that is unlocked is a safer prospect.

The second way that they could decline your claim would be to state that you have breached the principle of utmost good faith. The gist of the principle is that as the insured you have a much greater knowledge of the risk that the underwriters are insuring than the underwriters themselves. In order to stop insurance becoming prohibitively expensive the underwriters trust that you supply them with all material facts relating to the risk that they are insuring. If you do not disclose a material fact that you are aware of then the entire insurance policy can be rendered void. In this instance, you have made a declaration to the company that the bike is kept in a secure, locked area, and this has been recorded on your statement of fact. In order to successfully decline a claim the insurance company must have reasonable grounds to believe that, at the point of insuring the bike, you knew that the shutters were regularly left open and did not disclose this fact to them. Unlike the test for negligence above, there is no subjective test or test of reasonableness for this - if you've lied, game over. However, if the shutter door was fine at the time you signed in to the contract then it would be *very* difficult for the company to decline on these grounds.

In short: Almost certainly be reet.

[SAMMY650]

Thanks Neeja, that's the sort of info I was hoping for. Time to sit and read through the T&C's me thinks.
(Oh, and when i took out the insurance the shutter was working as it should so looks like I'm ok there)

Thanks everyone for the info & advice.