My insurance claim after my house flooded has been rejected as the firm says it was caused by rodents chewing through a pipe. What are my rights?
B.R., via email.
Dean Dunham replies: Unfortunately, most home insurance policies exclude damage caused by rodents or vermin, as a problem involving them is often considered a maintenance issue.
This means that the provider can dodge the claim by blaming the householder for failing to deploy effective pest control measures.
However, this is not always the case, so before you accept your insurance provider’s position, I would advise you to take the following steps.
Firstly, ask your provider to show you where in its terms and conditions rodent-related issues are excluded.
And, secondly, ask for a detailed explanation as to why your claim is being denied in order to ascertain if there is any way around it.
For example, if you are told the claim is being denied due to a failure to take pest control measures, you will be able to overcome this if you can prove otherwise – by producing evidence of a pest control contract or receipts showing you purchased pest control products.
Most home insurance policies exclude damage caused by rodents or vermin, which means that the provider can dodge the claim by blaming the householder for failing to deploy effective pest control measures, Dean Dunham writes
If your provider is unable to point you to a particular clause in the terms and conditions about rodent-related issues, or if it can and it’s not an absolute exclusion – in other words, rather than saying all damage caused by rodent issues is excluded, it says you will not be covered if you fail to take pest control measures – then make a formal complaint and ask the provider to reconsider its decision.
If this does not work, lodge a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service at financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
If you complain on the basis that your claim was rejected as you did not take appropriate pest control measures, make sure you provide sufficient evidence to counter this.
I was conned into sending money to a fraudster in August. I asked my bank to reimburse me and, after eight months, it has now refused. It claims that I was negligent for ignoring warnings about the scam that were issued by the bank. I never saw any warnings – what can I do?
T.W., via email.
Dean Dunham replies: You have clearly been the victim of an authorised push payment scam, also known as a bank transfer scam, which occurs when you send money from your bank account to one belonging to a scammer.
The rules governing how your bank responds to your case depends on when you lost the money. As of October 7, 2024, a new set of rules came into effect called the Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud reimbursement scheme, which most UK banks, building societies, e-money firms and other financial institutions must follow.
However, as the scam occurred before this date, your case falls under the voluntary Contingent Reimbursement Model Code (CRM Code) which most, but not all, banks were signed up to.
I assume your bank was signed up to the CRM Code, hence why it investigated your claim. Under the code, banks had an obligation to reimburse customers who fell victim to an APP fraud unless an exception applied.
One of these exceptions was where a customer failed to pay attention to warnings issued by their bank and this is obviously what yours is relying upon here.
As you did not see any such warning, you should ask your bank for proof and ask why it believes the warnings were prominent and likely to have been seen by customers.
If it cannot provide a satisfactory answer to this, you may have good grounds to file a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service – on the basis that it will be unreasonable for the bank to rely on this exception in circumstances where the so-called warnings were inadequate.
