More>Than Enough Trouble! (More Than Home Insurance)

Member Name: elmo1

Product:	More Than Home Insurance
Date:	27/01/09 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: sorted eventually,some freindly staff, quite cheap

Disadvantages: Unreliable, poor service and communication, significant delay

We decided to shop around for cheaper home insurance and my husband picked More Than as they seemed to have good reputation and good price.
Hopefully we will never have to claim as had no problems.

But one fateful day at start of November I was washing up in kitchen and heared screams from mini terroist in lounge.
My nearly 3 year old daughter had managed to pull £800 LCD tv off its stand.

My first thourght is thank god shes not hurt, my second oh my god the tv!
Keep calm it will be ok im sure it,s just fine pick it up off floor and put back on stand.

To my total horror the tv screen was cracked in 3places, noise but just lines.
The most obvious culprit for damage is my daughter although I suspect part of the blame has to go to her peppa pig plastic figures on floor which survived, peppa pig 1, tv 0!

So I rang hubby who was working late he said calm down best report to insurance tonight to get it sorted out as quickly as possible.
So I rang had to wait a few minutes but then nice helpful chap answered the phone and heard my sob story in full.
He said he could not speak to me as my husbands name was on policy so he would need to speak to my husband to get permission first before discussing claim further with myself.

Seemed fair enough so gave him our landline number so he could ring me back, husbands work line which put him through to switchboard of major DIY chain and husbands mobile.

He eventually got through and as promised ran me back.
He talked me through claims process and said it was probably to be 2weeks before its sorted out.
Also that due to high value of claim they wouuld be sending loss adjuster round the house to investigate within 4working days!

Luckily we had old tv in bedroom we could use but my daughter said she did not like small tv!
Hubby says it be fine, look on bright side no one was hurt its only a tv it can be replaced.

However after 12days no contact we rang More Than to complain.
The excuse was unfortunatly they had no contact numbers for us to tell us loss adjuster was very busy and would be a delay!
Yet when we took out insurance they had comtcat details and only 12days before their operator rang 3 of our numbers give.
Sorry More Than just not good enough.

Eventually we got an appointment 14 days after event when a serious stern loss adjuster devoid of personality came round to the house one morning to inspect the damage.
Unfortunatly daughter in nursury so unable to interrogate the suspect.
I explained peppa pig may have been an accomplice in causing the cracks to the tv screen as it landed on floor with toys scattered underneath.
She asked lost of questions and I explained daughter does sometimes drag her potty or toy box and stand on it.
She took notes, looked very serious , studied actual tv with minute detail and said another company would be round within 2 days to pick up tv to inspect damage and to assertain if it would be repaired which im my opinion it could not and would be offered like for like comparision.

Oh well you can guess more lies 2days was more like 7days before man came and took away damaged tv.
Its now been nearly a month with no tv!

Over a week past when we got snotty letter saying after studying damage and reveiwing evidence given they will not honour the claim as they do not believe a toddler could cause so much damage!

I mean I understand they have to do an investigation and some people do make dodgy claims but this was unbeliveable!
Be very worried ifyou with More Than and have destructive toddler in the house!


Well hubby fired off angry email that night saying how dare they accuse us of lying, we have been completly co-operative despite their negligance and awful customer service and poor communication.
We said we would appeal and take it further.

Next day hubby got phone call with someone with a brain and she apologised for the delay and trauma the company had caused us and they had reveiwed the case and will pay out waiving the hefty £100 excess!

Guess every cloud has silver liner but not sure if It was worth the stress they caused us making us feel like criminals but hey been month half now we need new tv lets just get it sorted.

They then put us in contact with another company who deal with accepted claims and send us vouchers ect.
They sub contract lots of bits out it seems maybe why they so bad at communicating with each other.

When we rang this company they had no idea about the waived excess fee so had to contact More Than again ourselves to email this company before we could proceed.
We were meant to get like for like specifications as out tv was 3years old the tv technology had progressed and cost of LCD,s had fallen so they offered us £400 of vouchers.

I myself was dubious and the fact we could only use Currys/Dixons limited us as John lewis offer 5 year gaurantee on their products plus free delivery.
We brought original tv from Comet but could not use them so could not really hunt round for best deal which annoyed me!

Hubby just wanted to get it dealt with so we went to Currys and ended up with LG 32inch LCD dont get me wrong it,s nice but not comparable felt ripped off but was too late.
The one we had before was Sharp Aquaos was top of range at the time and the newer version was £650 not £400 of vouchers they gave us.
So overall really unhappy as they been so deceiptful and negligent with their communication.
They caused us so much stress and dissapointment, will do anything to avoid paying out.
We went to 2 currys stores to get tv in car as they would have charged us home delivery costs and probably more delay!

I guess my advice to you all is when looking for house insurance is consider what happens when things go wrong and excess not just the monthly price.

I took 2months from event to get new tv with More Than making us feel like criminals and constant chasing up with More Than and other companies.

If you are unfortunate to have something happen do following things

1)always note down name of person you talk too and what they said with time and date.
2)stand your ground,less persistance and chasing up on our part got it sorted.
3)be cautious with like for like , do really good research online and in store so they don't con you, know the facts as they cant argue with those.
4)Do read small print carefully when signing agreement as some policies now exclude pet damage only a matter of time before child damage is included!

Not sure if this is useful and had no first hand experience but Lloyds TSB insurance looked good they have £50 excess and put money in bank which sounds better in principle but not sure about reality.

We will look to move shortly I think as I cannot bare the thourght of another fight if anything else goes wrong we had never claimed previously.

More Than Enough Trouble!

Summary: Has been total nightmare I tried to be forgiving but they were awful!