Hi OZB'ers,
I wanted to bring this to your attention, lest you find yourself in this position in future: An interesting back n forth from my home insurance company CGU in the last few weeks:
My wife & I have been with CGU Home Insurance in Queensland for 18 years, on their most expensive (VERY expensive) policy, and have never, ever made a claim. We now have young kids, and have now made three tiny and honest claims in the last 3 years (one due to flooding 3 yrs ago). The three claims total about $6,000 all up. We have now received a letter from them, stating they won't be renewing our home insurance at the end of this year's current policy, as we're 'not a worthwhile risk'.
OK, fine.. even though we're fully within our rights to make the three claims, as per our policy, and as confirmed by the CGU Assessors when they came to our house and ticked them off, we'll just opt to go with someone else then… Not so, as no other insurance company will touch you now, as you've been refused cover by another company. Further, you get a 'record' against you, on some database they all refer to, so in essence, if you get refused insurance from one, you're stuffed with the lot. We did find one company who would cover us, but they ramped everything up to double the price, and stifling conditions..!
So we ended up begging CGU to reconsider, which they did. But they told us if we make ONE CLAIM in the next 12 months, we'd be dropped permanently.
We plan to finish this year with them, then drop them like a school case, and go with someone else, though I guess they'll all be pirates with the same conditions!
Anyway, for what it's worth… BEWARE - in this country, it seems there are consequences that fall heavily against you for making claims against things you presume you're rightfully covered for!!!
Thanks for taking the time to let us know. That's pretty despicable behaviour, considering you have been with them for 18 years.
It means nothing, as I have found out previously (not with insurance). They are happy to take your money year after year after decade, but when it comes time to pay out, watch out.
And then to take money for a year to not put you on their industry blacklist, that's borderline fraud. Of course they would deny it, but depending on the correspondence it could be very interesting.