A Warm Welcome To Post Office Home Insurance

How to make a claimGuide to making a claim on your Buildingsor Contents insurance1. Before you call us3. How we’ll handle your claimIf your building has been damaged or yourpersonal property lost or stolen:If your claim is an emergency, and somethingneeds urgently repairing, we’ll arrange for oneof our approved partners to contact you withintwo hours. For non-emergencies, we’ll stillmake sure a repairer calls within 24 hours.C all the police and make sure you get acrime reference number.T ry to get lost items back by calling lostproperty.D o not throw damaged items away – untilwe say it is OK to do so.D o not repair or replace items withoutus agreeing to it first – unless it’s anemergency.Do not negotiate or settle any claims madeagainst you – unless we’ve written to sayyou can.2. C all our 24-hour ClaimsHelpline on 0345 165 0915Our helpline is open 365 days a year, 24 hoursa day, so someone will always be here to getyour claim started whenever you call us.For any claim that is made, you will needto be able to prove or substantiate that anactual insured incident covered by this policyhas occurred. This could be a police report,photographic or actual evidence of the loss ordamage you have suffered.You’ll need to provide details of everythingthat’s been lost, stolen or damaged, and wemay ask for receipts or proof of purchase insome cases.If we approve your claim, we’ll ask you to paythe excess. We’ll then repair or replace yourdamaged, lost or stolen items, or rebuild yourproperty, depending on the type of claim.Alternatively, we may make you a cash offer.We’ll decide which way of paying your claim ismost appropriate.If we suggest a repair, rebuild or replacement,we may offer to use one of our own partners.However, if you wish to use someone else,you’re free to do so, but if this is moreexpensive than the rate we can get from oneof our partners, we won’t pay for the extra cost.Page 9A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

All repairs carried out by one of our partnersare guaranteed for at least 12 months.If we decide not to repair, rebuild or replacethe buildings or contents that you’re claimingfor, we’ll offer to make you a cash payment.We work out the offer by calculating the lossin value of your buildings or contents, as wellas the estimated cost of repairing or replacingthem. We’ll then offer you the lower of thesetwo amounts.You’ll need to let us negotiate, defend or settleany disputes or claims on your behalf. You’llalso need to let us take legal action in yourname to get back any payment we’ve madeunder this policy.What is the excess and how does it work?The excess is the amount that you’ll have to pay towards any claim you make. Your excess amount will bededucted after any claim limit, as shown on your Policy summary, has been applied. For example, if you make aclaim for 1,000 and have an excess of 100 on your policy, we’d only pay you 900.There are different excesses for different parts of your Home insurance policy. You’ll find the details of thesein the Policy summary, which was sent to you when you bought your policy. In some cases, we don’t apply anexcess. We’ll tell you where that’s the case in the relevant part of the policy.If you need to claim on more than one part of your buildings or contents policy for the same event, we’ll onlymake you pay one excess. This will be the highest excess that applies to the parts of your policy that you’reclaiming under.Page 10A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

Matching sets and suitesWe treat each separate item of a matching pair, set or suite of furniture, soft furnishings, bathroom suite or other fixturesand fittings as a single item. If an item that’s part of a matching set or suite is damaged, we’ll aim to repair it or providean identical replacement. However, if it’s not possible to provide a suitable repair or replacement, we’ll only pay for thedamaged item. Just to be clear, we’ll not make any contribution for undamaged items that are part of a set or suite.If an item in a matching set or suite is lost or damaged, the undamaged matching items may lose some value even ifthey haven’t been lost or damaged themselves. This loss of value is not covered by your policy.Matching carpetsIf you’ve got a matching carpet or other floor covering in more than one room or area of your home, and this isseparated by a break, then we’ll treat each room or area as separate. By break we mean something that was originallydesigned to separate a room, for instance carpet dividing floor strips, doorways, archways and where the remains ofprevious partitions are still intruding the room. We’ll only pay for the damage to the carpet or floor covering in theroom or area where the damage happened and we won’t pay for matching carpets in other rooms.Matching sets of jewellery and other itemsWe treat pairs or sets of anything apart from bathroom, kitchen and furniture suites, as one item. So, for example, ifyour bag of golf clubs was stolen, we’d treat these as one item, and would only pay up to the maximum claim limit for asingle item to replace the entire set. Similarly, if you lost a pair of earrings, we’d treat the pair as one single item.Gold coverPlease check your Policy summary to confirm your level of policy cover.If you have a Gold policy, we will cover you for the following:Matching sets, pairs and suitesIf part of a matching pair, set or suite of furniture, soft furnishings, fitted furniture, bathroom suite or fitted kitchen is lost ordamaged by something covered by this policy, we’ll aim to repair it or provide an identical replacement. However, if it’s notpossible to repair or replace the damaged item with an exact match, we will cover the cost to replace the whole pair, setor suite as new. We will only pay you up to the amount it would have cost us to replace your items. This cover does notapply to matching carpets. If we ask, you must give us any undamaged items that we have paid to have replaced.Page 11A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

How to make a claimClaim limits on your policyIn most cases, however, we’ll pay some of yourclaim. To work out how much we’ll pay, we’llcalculate what we’d have charged to offer youthe level of cover that you would have neededto insure your buildings or contents as new infull. We then work out what percentage of thisnew premium you actually paid, and this willbe the percentage of your claim that we pay.The maximum your Home insurance policywill pay depends on the type of claimyou’re making.When you buy your policy, you’ll agree theoverall amount of cover. However, some typesof claims fall outside this limit. For example,claims for temporary accommodation won’tcount towards the overall claim limit that wasagreed when you bought the policy.So, for example, if you bought 50,000 ofcover for your contents, and we calculate thatthey’re actually worth 100,000, we’ll calculatehow much you would have had to pay us tocover you for the full amount.However, each of these additional parts ofcover have their own separate limit, and youcan find out what these are by checking yourPolicy summary.If you were paying 300 a year for your cover,and we calculate that you would need to havepaid 500 a year for the level of cover youneeded, we’d calculate that 300 is 60% of 500. As a result, we’d only pay 60% of anyclaim you make on your Contents policy. Thiswould apply even if you were making a claimwhich was below your policy’s maximumclaim limit.It’s really important that you’ve got the rightamount of cover in place for your needs. Ifyou’ve not taken out enough cover to replaceyour property and possessions as new, thismay have an effect on how much we pay fora claim.To work out the value of your contents, makea list of all your belongings and calculate whatit would cost to replace them as new.So if you made a claim for 50,000, we’d onlypay 30,000 in this example.If you make a claim and we discover that youdidn’t have enough cover, there are a numberof different ways that we can handle your case.For this reason, it’s really important you tell usabout any changes to your property, or anyincrease in value of your belongings.If our team decides that we wouldn’t haveoffered you insurance if you’d given us moreaccurate information when you boughtyour policy, we won’t be able to pay anyof your claim.Page 12A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

Keeping up with inflationAlways tell the truthEvery year, if you renew your policy with us,we will review the value of your cover.However, it’s still your responsibility to makesure the cover limits are enough to replaceyour property and possessions as new. For theContents policy, any changes we make to ourcover limits will be based on the ConsumerDurables Index provided by the Office forNational Statistics. For the Buildings policy,we’ll base any change on the House RebuildingCost Index. We’ll only reduce your coverif you ask us to.It’s really important that you’re honest with uswhen you’re buying a policy or making a claim.This applies to your Buildings and/or Contents,and optional or enhanced covers (includingthose provided by DAS). Providing wrong ormisleading information that you know couldeither help you gain financially, or us suffer afinancial loss, is fraud and pushes up the costof insurance for all customers.Your valuablesThe maximum we’ll pay for claims relating toyour valuable items is different to the maximumwe’ll pay for other claims. By valuables, wemean jewellery, works of art, collectors’ items,ornaments, precious stones and anything madefrom precious metals such as gold. We alsomean clocks, watches, musical instruments,photographic equipment, binoculars,telescopes, furs and guns.If you have any valuable items worth more than 2,500, you need to tell us about them so theycan be listed on the policy. We won’t pay morethan 2,500 for any valuable item that you’venot told us about.If you’ve given us inaccurate information wemay void the policy, which means we’d treatyou as though the policy had never beenissued, and we wouldn’t give you a refund.We might also refuse to pay a claim, or makeyou repay any money we’ve already paidout in claims where fraud has occurred. Thisis explained again in the section What yourpolicy does and doesn’t cover on page 15.We’ll also tell other insurers and anti-frauddatabases, which could affect your ability toget access to insurance and other financialservices in the future. We may also let thepolice know, who may choose to bring chargesagainst you that could ultimately result in aprosecution. So please do make sure thatyou’re always honest with us. This way we canpay any claims you make and keep the costof our insurance down for all our customers.We strongly recommend that you regularlyreview the value of any valuable item that’sworth close to or more than 2,500. If thevalue of any valuable item that you’ve told usabout has changed, then you must let us know.Page 13A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

The Insurance Fraud Bureau’s Cheatline is independent to us and is a free andconfidential way for anyone to report insurance fraud.Each month, around 500 reports are received via either the free-phone number,which is powered by Crimestoppers, or through the online form.Information submitted to the Cheatline complements the wide array of data fromthe insurance industry and other agencies, giving us a unique insight into organisedinsurance fraud in the UK. Together, this information helps us identify fraudstersand work with others to bring them to justice, as well as helping insurers to avoidhaving to pay out fraudulent claims.0800 422 0421insurancefraudbureau.org/cheatlinePage 14A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

How to make a claimWhat your policy does and doesn’t coverWhy we sometimes don’t pay claimsThere are some circumstances in which your policy won’t pay out. In the tables that start onpage 17, you’ll see a detailed list of what is and isn’t covered depending on the reason youmake a claim.But there are a few things that could stop us paying your claim regardless of the circumstances.We’ve laid these out below.Things we don’t pay claims for include:W ear and tear or anything that happensgradually. This includes damage toelectrical appliances and other itemscaused by them breaking down. epairs that wouldn’t have been made ifRyou’d dealt with existing problems to yourproperty. It’s your responsibility to lookafter your buildings and contents, and yourpolicy is designed to only cover you forthings that you couldn’t have reasonablyprevented. You must also deal with aproblem as soon as you become aware of it. amage caused by repairing, cleaning,Ddemolishing or making alterations to yourbuildings or contents. This exclusiondoesn’t apply to Buildings Section A:Homeowners’ legal responsibilities coverand Contents Section B: Your Public &personal legal responsibilities. ny claims caused by a person orApeople acting alone or on behalf of, orin connection with, any association ororganisation, using biological, chemicalor nuclear force or contamination.D amage caused by frost, rot, mildew,fungus or poisoning. Damagecaused by contamination fromnuclear fuel or nuclear waste.A ccidental damage caused by insects,parasites, wild animals and birds. (Thisdoesn’t apply to Section I: DAS HomeEmergency cover.) ny loss, damage, injury or for any moneyAyou’re legally obliged to pay if the claimwas caused by something being taken fromyou by customs or other officials.Page 15A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

A ny loss which is a side effect, or happensas a result of the event for which you’remaking a valid claim. For example, wewon’t pay for any reduction in the marketvalue of your property, loss of earnings,travel costs or compensation for stress orinconvenience. We also won’t cover thefees of any company you engage to helpyou in relation to your claim. ny claim made without the permissionAof the policy holder named on the Policysummary.L egal costs, damage, losses, as well as anymoney you’re legally obliged to pay toother people, if you are insured under anyother general insurance policy (includingmore specific policies such as your pet ortravel insurance) until the limit of indemnityunder that policy has been exhausted. Anyclaim that is found to be fraudulent.We may also choose to either void orcancel your policy if a fraudulent claimor policy application is made. We’ll alsolook to recover from you any investigationfees, legal costs or payments that mighthave already been made to you if welater find that any element of your claimwas fraudulent. Wedon’t pay for, or make a contributiontowards any claim for undamaged itemsthat are part of a set or a suite. (Please seepage 11 for more information.)Damage caused by any criminal ordeliberate act by you or your family.Page 16A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

Your Buildings insuranceSection A: Buildings insuranceYou’re only covered under this section of the policy if it says so on your Policy summary, whichwas sent to you when you bought this insurance.What is insured and what we do payclaims forWhat is not insured and what wedon’t pay claims for1. Fires and earthquakes1. Fires and earthquakesWe’ll pay claims where your buildings aredamaged by fire, smoke, explosion, lightningor by an earthquake.We don’t pay claims caused by scorching, singeingor melting.2. Riots2. RiotsWe’ll pay claims where your buildings are damagedby a riot.You need to report the damage to the police withinseven days.3. Vandalism3. VandalismWe’ll pay claims for vandalism to your buildings.We don’t pay claims for: Vandalism caused by you or your family, or by aperson who is allowed to be in your home, suchas a cleaner or tenant. Vandalism if your home is unoccupied.Page 17A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

What is insured and what we do payclaims forWhat is not insured and what wedon’t pay claims for4. D amage to your property caused by moving objects4. D amage to your property caused by moving objectsWe’ll pay claims where your buildings are hit bymoving or falling objects.We don’t pay claims for: Cutting down or taking away all or part of afallen tree, unless it has caused damage toyour buildings.For example, we’d cover you if your buildings werehit by an aircraft, car or falling tree.We also don’t pay claims for damage: Caused by all or part of a tree being cut down. To hedges, gates and fences. Caused by household pets. To aerials, satellite dishes, masts, or their fittings.5. Storm5. StormWe’ll pay claims for damage to your buildingscaused by a storm.We don’t pay claims for: Damage to gates and fences.By a storm, we mean strong winds of over 55mph,or damage by extreme rain, snow or hail. Rainfallis extreme if more than 2.5cm falls in an hour.Snowfall is extreme if 30cm or more falls in a24-hour period. Hail is extreme if it exceeds2cm in diameter. Damage to swimming pool and hot tub covers. Rain or water damage to the inside of yourbuildings if the water gets into your house asa result of poor workmanship, bad design orwear and tear.We also don’t pay for claims caused by: Subsidence, ground heave or landslip underthe storm part of the policy. These claimsmust be dealt with under the subsidence partof the policy. A higher excess applies to allsubsidence claims. Please check your Policy summary to see howmuch it is.Page 18A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

What is insured and what we do payclaims forWhat is not insured and what wedon’t pay claims for6. Flood6. FloodWe’ll pay claims for damage to your buildingscaused by a flood.We don’t pay claims for damage to: Gates and fences.By flood, we mean water that comes suddenly intoyour buildings from outside, and which enters atthe ground floor or below. Swimming pool and hot tub covers.We also don’t pay for claims caused by: Subsidence, ground heave or landslip underthe flood part of the policy. These claims mustbe dealt with under the subsidence part ofthe policy. A higher excess applies to allsubsidence claims. Please check your Policy summary to see howmuch the compulsory excess is for floodand subsidence.Page 19A warm welcomeHow to make a claimYour Buildings insuranceYour Contents insuranceMaking changes and moreEnhanced Cover (DAS)

What is insured and what we do payclaims forWhat is not insured and what wedon’t pay claims f

Contents insurance A warm welcome Your Home insurance policy made simple We've designed our Home insurance policy to cover you against the unexpected. However, like all insurance policies, there are limits to what is covered. Your Policy summary confirms whether you have a Bronze, Silver or Gold-based policy and this