Esure Don't Get Done Get Dom

I've been battling your consumer rights for years, but some companies still aren't getting the message.

The main aim and goal for big companies is profit.

They don't care about the customers.

Day in, day out, thousands of you are still being taken for a ride,

and it's always the same old things -

shoddy products, small print and bad customer service.

They use words which an ordinary person wouldn't understand.

Some firms are driving you barmy, causing you sleepless nights

and making you feel like you're the one to blame.

But don't despair,

cos I'm here to take up the fight to make sure that you don't get done.

Coming up on today's show...

all that glitters is gold.

Unless, of course, it gets stolen

and your insurance company refuses to pay out.

We were just gutted, this is how the insurers were treating us,

you're left in the lurch, high and dry.

How one woman's kitchen calamity turned her into a consumer champion.

My blood was rising, and I thought,

"I'm going to have to take them to court."

And my team hits the streets

to find out how consumer savvy you really are.

I'm wrong! I thought I might be on that!

Most of us have got insurance. "Why?" I hear you ask.

Well, should our valuables

be lost or stolen, you can make a claim on your policy.

And you should get the cash - lovely -

to buy replacements.

But be warned, because not every insurance claim has a happy ending.

And one Bradford-based couple know this only too well.

Meet Sadiq Ali, a hardworking family man, and his wife, Mohima.

When it comes to insurance, Sadiq is no slouch.

He makes sure that he has building and contents cover

to protect his family from loss or damage.

At least you know then that if lightning strikes or whatever,

that you won't be on the street, you won't be homeless,

and your goods and things will be replaced.

Like a lot of people,

Sadiq completed his renewal questionnaire online.

He chose a total of £30,000 worth of cover in August 2010

with insurance company esure.

So far, so good, but what about expensive individual items

such as Sadiq's wife's jewellery? Would that need extra cover?

I think there was a question there, something about,

"Do you have any particular items, high risk,

that are worth more than £1,500?"

Certainly, for our jewellery, we didn't think anything was worth

more than that, so we just put "no" for that question.

As far as we're concerned, once we completed the process

and it's done and it's paid for, that's it.

I think, "That's it, I'm covered."

But Sadiq's newly-bought peace of mind was about to be shattered,

and the family thrown into turmoil,

when they arrived home after an enjoyable Sunday out to find that

thieves had broken into their home and turned it upside-down.

They'd been through the bedrooms, all the drawers,

under the mattresses, behind the picture frames.

They'd literally ransacked the whole house, from top to bottom.

It was a bitter blow, and obviously hit the family hard.

You just felt sick to your gut, really, that somebody had

invaded your home, gone through your personal belongings.

The thieves had been heart-breakingly thorough,

and had stolen everything of value.

Including the boys' games consoles, family laptops and,

most upsettingly of all, Sadiq's wife Mohima's precious collection

of gold jewellery.

The one thing that helped to keep up the family spirits was

the thought that at least they were insured.

We thought, obviously, "That's it, hopefully everything'll get replaced

"and it'll compensate for the event that's happened."

But despite assurances from their insurance company, esure,

that their claim would be processed within ten days,

the family was left hanging on for nearly five and a half months

until finally the company came back with a bombshell.

They turned round and said to us, "Sorry, we're voiding your insurance

"from the inception date because you're underinsured."

Crikey, that's harsh.

esure had stated that the value of Mohima's gold jewellery was

way above the amount Sadiq had quoted -

therefore he was underinsured.

But voiding his insurance policy meant that the company had

washed their hands of any responsibility to settle his claim.

This was a cruel knockback.

We were just gutted, this is how the insurers were treating us,

left in the lurch, high and dry.

It sounds to me as though they've been done over by the burglars

and now, potentially,

they'd been done over by their insurance company.

A double whammy, or what? Which is why...

I've come to Bradford to meet Sadiq and Mohima.

I can tell you what, it's beautiful, but it ain't half cold.

They've been burgled, put a claim in with their insurance company.

For one reason or another, they're not getting a payout.

I'm here to find out why. They're in a bit of a pickle, really.

-Right, Dom, this is my wife, Mohima.

-Lovely to meet you.

I've never been burgled, but the thing that must be

one of the most upsetting elements of it is

the violation of your personal space.

How did you feel about that?

Especially you,

-being a mum and worrying about the kids and things.

-Devastated.

I think for a few days after we did get burgled,

every time I'm in the kitchen,

I were looking out the window, and if I saw someone going by,

especially a young lad or something, I thought, "They've come back."

The robbery clearly struck at the very heart of the family,

and nowhere more so than the theft of Mohima's jewellery.

How personal was all that stuff?

Very, cos my husband bought it over the years.

And at that time, you weren't working.

The first job you got, so with your first wage. You had to save.

It'd be nice, I think it'd give my wife the confidence again

and happiness inside...

-Yeah.

-..to be able to replace it, but obviously we can't afford to.

And that's exactly where you'd expect your insurance company

to come to your rescue.

Sadiq bitterly remembers those first few days

after originally putting in the claim.

The impression they gave me was that it would be fairly simple,

straightforward, that they would look at processing our claim

and paying for our losses.

However, in the weeks and months after their claim,

esure informed the family that they were voiding their policy,

and it all came down to the fact that

Mohima's gold had soared in price,

way more than Sadiq had ever thought possible.

esure told them they had been grossly underinsured.

What esure turned around and said was that,

because the jewellery was worth about £13,000,

instead of what we thought it was, about 4,000,

that meant that they only allowed 10,000 for your high-risk items,

and jewellery's classed as high-risk.

So they said, because jewellery's 13,000,

it goes over the one third that they allow,

so they said they wouldn't have covered us,

had they known the true value of our high-risk items.

Right, now, you just said there that

you thought your gold jewellery was worth about four grand-ish,

but they said it's now worth 13,000. There's a huge difference there.

You presumably were originally only expecting four grand back, were you?

Yeah.

What have they done, then?

By the sounds of it, they've valued your gold probably by its weight

and at today's market value.

And there lies the problem. The very nugget of the issue.

Sadiq bought the last of

his wife's jewellery five years ago. At that time,

he thought all her jewellery was worth just over £2,000.

The price of gold has rocketed since then,

making the jewellery now worth a whopping £13,500.

Did you not think about renewing or having it valued and getting it

up to date so that people... you knew what it would cost to replace it.

We didn't think it'd jump that much.

We doubled it, and that's what we thought it was worth.

We did, we thought, "Yeah, it's worth probably double what we paid for it."

-That's purely just you guessing, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Sadly.

So, the insurance company have got, technically,

a bit of an argument there, haven't they? You were underinsured.

Now, one of the things which insurance companies have to do,

they have to look at whether somebody -

namely you, their client -

has been negligent or dishonest, or, basically,

you just made a small mistake and you weren't aware of it.

They've obviously assumed for some reason that you haven't made

a small mistake and they're going to allow you to get away with it -

they've looked at this and thought, "No, you haven't done it right -

"your problem, we wouldn't have insured you."

They did say in the letter that they accepted that we weren't deliberate

in how we misrepresented the value of the jewellery.

They accepted that, but they said,

regardless of that, it was negligent of us not to know the value.

As far as you can remember, have esure ever said to you,

"You might be underinsured because the value of gold has gone up -

"get any jewellery, any valuable items reinsured, revalued"?

No, nothing like that.

Sadiq clearly did everything he thought

he should to be able to claim on his insurance,

and although I never would have expected a big insurance company

to have a heart of gold, I would certainly expect them to play fair.

Not only were esure refusing to pay out on their gold,

computers and their sons' game consoles,

their decision to void the policy has had even worse ramifications.

-All of a sudden, you've got nothing now.

-Nothing.

What other knock-on effects has that had?

Well, the fact that they voided us means that we have to tell

other insurers, and I've been out to try and get other insurance

for the building and the contents and people say no.

The insurers will quote you,

but when you tell them that you've been voided,

the underwriting department refuse to provide cover.

-Ouch. Not looking good, is it?

-No.

You can say that again.

esure has not only left Sadiq and his family uninsured,

but what's worse, uninsurable.

While I get on their case to see if esure could have done better

and get them to look again at his claim,

I've asked Sadiq to do some research.

The ballooning price of gold is

clearly one of the areas to investigate, so I've asked him

to find out the price of gold per gram today,

the price when the policy was taken out

and also the price when Sadiq bought the jewellery,

so that I can get a grip on what's been going on.

By calling me in, what were you hoping to achieve by this?

We were hoping that you could fight our cause

and get the insurers to at least reinstate our insurance.

I can't make any promises. You know that.

I don't know if there's any areas there

which I can find out and dig out

and try and improve on.

The insurance company might be 100% right,

-but I'll certainly have a good try for you.

-Mmm-hmm.

People have this impression that insurance companies do

everything within their power to avoid paying out.

I don't believe that. I think as long as you've done your job,

insurance companies will pay out.

In this case, though, Sadiq and Mohima have got a bit of a problem.

There's things in there which aren't quite right,

and as a result of that, they're not getting paid out,

and they've lost a lot of valuable equipment.

It's a bit of a mess, but I'm going to do everything I can

to see if I can to get that ruling overturned.

Now, before I get stuck into this case,

it always pays to find out just what I'm dealing with.

esure was founded in 2000

as an internet and telephone-based insurance company

with just 50 staff, and within less than five years became

one of the fastest-growing insurers in the UK.

Well known for their high-profile marketing campaign,

spawning the phrase, "Calm down, dear, it's only a commercial,"

esure's stated goal is to offer superior service.

I think it's high time I put that to the test.

Right, Sadiq's claim may have been stopped - let's see

if we can start it again.

'So, superior customer service, eh? Let's find out.

'I get put through to esure's claims department.'

My name's Dominic Littlewood, I'm calling from the BBC.

It's about a policy claim that's going through with esure

at the moment, and I just wondered

if I could speak to somebody about that.

'After handing over Sadiq's policy details and explaining that

'I'm now on the case and have Sadiq's permission

'to handle it exclusively,

'they say they'll have to get someone to call me back.' Bye-bye.

Not a particularly helpful first call,

but sometimes you mention your name and people go, "Ooh, scared."

Anyhow, I've got some details there,

but I've got to start faxing over details to them.

Not a great start, but at least it's under way.

But will this case come crashing down even before I can build it up

when esure drop a bombshell?

'There is absolutely no two ways about it,

'he did not tell us the truth about what was in his house.'

Now, consumer law can be very confusing.

You've got your Sales of Goods Act, distance selling,

right to return - I could go on, but knowing just a few of these laws can

save you not only money but a lot of hassle as well.

My research team have been out on the streets,

armed with questions to put to you, the buying public, to find out

if you know your consumer rights from your consumer wrongs.

Today, we've hit the shopping centres

in our quest for spreading knowledge.

The first question for you lot...

"While in the shop, another customer carelessly knocks a heavy item

"onto your feet, hurting you quite badly.

"Who's responsible for the accident?"

The other customer.

If the store's not at fault at all,

then the customer would be responsible.

I'd say the customer.

I think I'm wrong now. I think the store are liable,

cos I think they're always liable, that's why they have insurance.

Correct. But only one out of three, though.

Yeah, the store are always liable.

The shop has a duty of care

to ensure the safety of everyone on the premises.

Supervisors and managers have an obligation to deal with

inappropriate behaviour by its customers.

The shop is liable if the trip, slip or fall could have been prevented.

Staying in the stores, next up, the wrong size.

"You return a jumper to a clothes store and it's the wrong size.

"The shop assistant tries to give you vouchers but you prefer cash.

"Can you insist on a cash refund?"

I imagine, again, it depends on the small print on the receipt.

It's a difficult one.

If you paid cash for it, yes, they should pay cash back.

I said if you've got the receipt...

If you've got the receipt, yes, you can.

-Oops. Three out of three wrong.

-Really?

Really indeed.

The retailer is well within their rights to give you vouchers

to spend in store because the onus is on you

to make sure that the item fits before leaving the premises.

The shop may refund in cash,

but this would be a goodwill gesture on their part.

-So, try it on before you leave?

-Yeah.

Good thinking!

Too right, sir. And finally, the dodgy dongle.

"You have wireless internet coverage on your laptop through a dongle.

"When you move house, you can't get internet coverage

"in the new location. You cancel with the provider

"but they bill you for breaking the contract and they charge you."

No, cos it's their fault if you don't get service in their area.

I'm not too sure. I think they could charge you

if you're still under contract,

because you can't break the contract until a certain date.

If you tell them that you're going to move, then they should make sure

that you can still receive it from where you are,

where you've moved to.

-If not, then they shouldn't be able to bill you.

-Two out of three wrong.

I'm wrong? I thought I might be on that!

I'd have tried to wiggle out of it, anyway!

If you sign a contract, you're obliged to pay for the duration

of this contract, even if you move out of the service area.

If you're ending a contract early, you may have to pay the sum

totalling the remaining payments to the end of the contract.

Some companies may offer an alternative or cancel the contract,

but only as a goodwill gesture.

Well, you lot, I think you all need to brush up on your consumer rights.

Trust me, knowing them will stop you getting done.

I'm looking into the case of Sadiq Ali,

whose family home was ransacked by burglars in April 2011.

Sadiq took comfort in the fact that his insurance would cover the loss.

But esure took one look at Sadiq's claim and branded it void,

saying that his wife's jewellery wasn't covered

because the price of gold had risen so much.

And even worse, having their policy voided also meant that

their reputation was tarnished

and other insurance companies wouldn't touch them.

We might not have bothered paying the premium to the insurance company.

"Calm down" might have been the motto for this insurance company,

but they've left Sadiq and his family anything but calm with their heavy-handed approach.

Sadiq has appealed esure's decision

to the Financial Ombudsman Service,

and while he waits for their findings,

I'm determined to keep on the case.

For me, this case revolves around one thing -

the changing price of gold.

When Sadiq took out his insurance policy,

he covered himself for £30,000 worth of contents cover.

Now, that consisted of £20,000 for low-risk items,

represented by these two balloons...

..and £10,000 for high-risk items,

represented by this gold balloon.

However, after the burglary, Sadiq realised to his cost

that the price of gold had shot up considerably.

Which meant Sadiq was actually underinsured.

Now, the insurance company then voided his claim and cancelled

his insurance policy, which meant he had no insurance at all.

That is a pretty harsh price to pay for a simple mistake.

When you insure your possessions, most of us know that

they're going to go up or down in value, but in the event of a claim,

quite often insurance companies will give you the replacement cost.

So, I've asked Sadiq to speak to some experts to find out

just how much gold has gone up over the past few years.

This is interesting.

I've found a website here that shows the price of gold

for the past decade.

You look back here, it's showing about 2002,

the price of gold was about £7, £8 a gram.

And in 2008, roughly to the second bit of gold that we bought,

it's showing about £10 a gram.

So far, so good, but what about now?

Time to find out from a local jeweller

just what the cost would be today.

£35.62, plus VAT.

Crikey, that's quadrupled in just four years.

So, no wonder the jewellery that Sadiq insured

for four and a half grand is,

according to esure, now worth over 15 grand.

Who'd have thought it?

Certainly not Sadiq, not me, and probably not half the country.

Surely you need to be a gold expert to stay on top of

that kind of pricing roller coaster.

Unless people have been studying the bullion market for whatever reason,

I think it's unlikely that the general public will appreciate

exactly how much gold has gone up in the last ten years.

And so therefore, they won't have realised

how much their jewellery has increased in value.

If you have a treasured piece of jewellery

that you bought in, say, 1980,

and you are relying on the original purchase receipt,

you cannot expect an insurer to pay out in a post-loss situation

on just the information on that receipt.

You really do need to have an up-to-date valuation.

There's always been a problem with people not having

their jewellery insured properly and valued properly,

but because of the rocketing bullion prices over the last ten years,

we've seen an extraordinary number of cases

of people being so grossly underinsured.

I would say that it's probably not an exaggeration to state that

I see it leaves two people a day in my working life who are undervalued.

Sadiq made a big mistake when he took his insurance out.

He didn't realise how much the price of gold had gone up

in the last ten years, and I've got a funny feeling

it's a very common mistake. Let's find out.

Let me give you that lump of gold there.

Now, ten years ago, if you bought that, it'd cost you £1,000

-and you insured it for £1,000.

-Right.

-Right? Lucky girl, aren't you?

-Yeah.

-But yesterday, you got burgled, the gold was stolen.

-Oh.

How much would you expect your insurance company to pay you out?

Probably the same amount, hopefully.

-1,000?

-Yeah.

You see, it's now worth five grand.

-So...

-I would like to think that I'd get that.

-The £5,000?

-Yeah.

-£1,000.

-Why?

That's how much it's worth.

-Ah...

-Or do you think it should have gone up in price?

-That's now worth five grand.

-OK.

So, how much should your insurance company pay out?

Five grand!

-Yeah?

-Am I just stating the obvious here?

'So you'd hope, but how would you feel if, like Sadiq,

'you're considered grossly underinsured and get nothing?'

I'd be angry, obviously.

I didn't think that that could actually happen.

It's just not possible. You rely on these people to do a good job,

and they're not. No, that's scary.

What if I told you the chances are they wouldn't give you a penny?

-Really?

-Really. You're classed as underinsured.

They would possibly cancel your policy

and you possibly couldn't get insurance again

as a result of the claim being made void.

-Gracious me!

-It's a bit shocking, isn't it?

That is shocking, yes.

And on top of that, you're to blame.

How are you going to feel about that?

Whose responsibility is it to keep the value up to date?

The insurance company's or yours?

I don't know.

-It's probably mine, innit? Is it?

-It is yours.

-To keep a tab on what's going on?

-Yeah.

But insurance companies are aware it's gone up.

Should they be warning you of that?

-They should do, shouldn't they?

-Yeah.

They should write to you, shouldn't they, and say you're underinsured?

You see, there is proof of the pudding.

A lot of people could find themselves

in exactly the same situation as Sadiq -

sitting on a goldmine but insured for a coalmine.

Right, I've had a letter back from the insurance company

about poor old Sadiq.

And it's brought up a couple of questions for me,

which I think would be quite interesting.

'Now, although the Financial Ombudsman is

'also investigating this, I'm going to get back on the hotline

'to esure to see if I can get to the bottom of this case.

'After my first call,

'I now have a contact who sounds like a decision maker to me -

'Adrian Webb, Head of Corporate Communication.'

-Hello there, it's Adrian here.

-Hi, Adrian, it's Dominic Littlewood.

'Having spoken to members of the public

'and with information from valuers,

'clearly, undervaluing gold is a huge problem.

'Surely esure is not going to blame Sadiq for what is a common mistake?'

In your opinion, do you think that Sadiq has deliberately misled you?

Whatever it is, he did mislead us.

There is no two ways about it from what we've looked at

and what we've seen.

There is absolutely no two ways about it.

He did not tell us the truth about what was in his house.

'That's a shock. They actually think Sadiq lied to them.'

I've got to be honest, I can feel this one slipping away from me.

I'm not feeling very good about this one.

Now, in spite of what Adrian says, we know esure wrote to Sadiq,

saying that they did not think that he had withheld the true value

of the jewellery maliciously, ie deliberately.

And yet they still voided his policy.

Are they allowed to do that?

And if so, how many more people across the country are about to get

a rude awakening when they discover their insurance policy isn't worth

the paper it's written on?

So, underinsurance is clearly a big issue, but just how big?

David Cresswell is a director at the Financial Ombudsman Service,

which is there to help consumers who have fallen out with their bank

or insurance company.

So he's just the man to tackle this thorny issue of underinsurance.

Underinsurance is a common problem.

Although at the Ombudsman we see a relatively small number of cases,

it's accepted that it's probably the tip of the iceberg in the sense that

possibly up to one in four people don't have enough insurance

to cover the current-day value of their possessions.

Underinsurance is all about people not recognising

the true value of what they've got. And telling their insurer

that things are worth less than they actually are.

But if you have still paid your premiums, why is this so critical?

Underinsurance is a really serious issue for insurance companies.

It goes right to the very heart of what insurance is about.

And insurance companies will tell you

it's all about "utmost good faith".

What that means is they will say they are going to be

completely open and honest with you,

and you, the customer,

must be completely open and honest with them.

So, if you say your valuables are worth £25,000,

and in actual fact they're worth £50,000,

the insurance company can quite literally say you've lied to them.

So, if they think you're lying, what would be the consequences?

In some cases of underinsurance,

the insurer can exercise their legal right to void the policy.

That's really serious. It's probably going to mean

you're going to have great difficulty

getting any other kind of insurance as well.

But, usually that will only happen when the insurance company

is pretty satisfied that you have actually tried,

in some way, to defraud them.

Right, what we have just heard from the Financial Ombudsman is dynamite.

A company can't void your policy

unless they think you have intentionally lied to them.

And I have it right here in black and white that esure don't think

that Sadiq deliberately misled them.

So, we're firing off an e-mail to Adrian, stating those regulations

prove to be the golden bullet to blow apart esure's arguments.

Right, just had a message. esure have been back on the phone.

They've only got an hour to speak to me. Probably another meeting.

Let's find out what's going on.

I get lots of mail, and I just love it

when it's stories about you taking on the big boys and winning.

Good on you.

Here's a story of how you did it.

The kitchen, the heart of the family home,

and with 23 million of them in the UK,

it's big business for the manufacturers and retailers.

But what happens when your shiny new kitchen starts to fall apart

after only a few years,

and the company you bought it from has disappeared down the plughole?

I couldn't have afforded to replace it myself. We're pensioners.

Meet grandmother of four, Angela Rice.

Back in 2007, she decided to replace her tired kitchen

with a brand-spanking-new one at a cost of £5,212.

We were very pleased with it.

It was in shades of coffee and cream and it was really very nice.

But, four years down the line,

Angela noticed something a bit off-colour about her kitchen.

We sat looking at it one day and I thought,

"Are the colours of the kitchen changing?"

And gradually, the change became more and more apparent

and the coffee shades actually turned from coffee to almost a pale grey.

I was very upset, because this was a dream kitchen

that I'd longed for for quite some time.

So it was really disappointing.

And so began Angela's battle to get things put right.

My immediate reaction was to dig out the invoice

and contact the original supplier.

To my horror, I found that he'd gone bankrupt,

so there wasn't going to be any help there.

Not one to fall at the first hurdle, Angela tried another tack.

My next reaction was to approach the manufacturer.

They did offer to sell me fresh units,

at manufacturer's cost price.

That still would have involved me in a lot more expense.

A lot of you would have given up there and then,

but not Angela, because she was a bit of a legal eagle.

10-15 years ago, because I left school at 16

and didn't have any A-levels, I decided to do an A-level in law.

I felt, if my youngest son can cope with law,

and he's not nearly as bright as his mum, I'm sure I can do it.

So I actually did A-level law. And I got an A.

And A-student Angela was about to become top of the class.

When you have paid for a product with your credit card,

that makes the credit card company

jointly and severally responsible for defective goods,

or goods that are not of satisfactory quality.

She was bang-on.

The Consumer Credit Act of 1974 provides protection

to consumers via their credit card companies

from faulty goods and businesses going under.

So, she got straight on to Barclaycard, and told them

they were now responsible for the cost of getting things fixed.

After the initial phone call,

we started sending photographs of the kitchen.

We sent them numerous e-mails.

Their response was always slow.

I made telephone logs,

where I had been hanging on for 40 minutes,

listening to muzak, and this sort of thing.

And it really is very frustrating, trying to communicate with them.

Angela felt she needed concrete proof that her kitchen was indeed faulty,

so, she did some digging.

I found out that there were two organisations that could help me.

The Kitchens And Bathrooms Association,

or the Furniture Ombudsman.

Both of which would charge in the region of £350 for a report.

And I wrote to Barclaycard and said, would this be acceptable?

And were they prepared to contribute towards the report?

And they wrote back to me, offering me £50.

I then contacted them again and said, "This is derisory."

I went ahead with the report from the Furniture Ombudsman.

The report came back, conclusively stating that the kitchen

was of defective manufacture and I thought, at that stage,

they are going to have to admit responsibility.

Angela sent Barclaycard the report, together with two quotes

for the kitchen repairs, and waited for their reply.

They came back to me and told me they had lost the report

and they had only copied two pages of it.

I was livid. My blood was rising and I thought,

I'm going to have to take them to court.

The other thing that had happened was they had said, if they didn't

hear from me within ten days, they were going to close the case.

Hey, I'd been going at this for about four months!

So, at that stage, I had to write back and say, "This is it.

"Seven days or I'm going to take you to court."

After a six-day wait, Barclaycard got back to her.

They did respond with an offer of £3,318.

And £250 for the Furniture Ombudsman's report

and, they said, in full and final settlement.

Angela's tenacity and legal savvy had paid off.

I feel as if I have won a moral battle, and the outcome is good.

My kitchen is lovely to look at, and yeah, it was worth doing.

Barclaycard have issued a statement, saying:

They go on to apologise and confirm that:

What a great result for Angela.

She showed Barclaycard that,

if you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen!

Father of two Sadiq Ali is battling his insurance company, esure.

They voided his policy

and refused to pay out after a burglary at the family home.

It wasn't just that we lost, suffered a burglary

and all the heartache and anxiety that goes with that.

Then, none of our things were replaced

by the insurers that we depended on.

Now, I've been digging deep to find a way to make esure back down.

And, so far, this has been a really tough nut.

But, I think I might have finally found a crack in this case.

Thanks to the Financial Ombudsman's regulations,

which state that a policy can be voided only when

there is a deliberate attempt to lie to the insurance company,

which, esure agree, was not true in Sadiq's case.

While waiting for a ruling from the Financial Ombudsman's service

on whether esure was justified in voiding Sadiq's claim,

I fired off an e-mail to Adrian, head of corporate communications,

pointing out FOS regulations,

and it seems that I might have hit a nerve,

because he came straight back to me.

Right, just had a message. esure have been back on the phone.

And they've only got an hour to speak to me.

Probably another meeting. Let's find out what's going on.

I have a feeling that this could be a turning point

and that all that research is about to pay off.

Right, here goes. What's the update?

The update is, we will not be voiding the policy.

And we will be passing the claim back for assessment again.

Bingo. Just what I wanted to hear. Looks like we're back in business.

It seems that, after my e-mail, esure got in touch

with the Financial Ombudsman service before their ruling

and told them they were going to do a U-turn. Great, but what now?

We'll be reinstating their policy and dealing with the whole thing

as fast as we humanly can, to minimise any stress on them.

Which is really good news.

We'll be dealing with the claim.

How we will be dealing with the claim, I'm not sure.

This is all brilliant,

but what really changed their minds about Sadiq's claim?

Genuinely, hand on heart, going through it now,

-it is a case of, you know, extreme naivete, but not deliberate.

-No.

But the question about paying out

and voiding the policy is the important one.

We should not have voided that policy.

I've rung the bell, but don't forget,

we're still waiting for that payout.

Cheers, bye.

I like it when you deal with someone who knows what he's talking about.

I've got a feeling Sadiq is going to be jumping over the moon.

Sadiq and Mohima have been very, very fortunate

and there's lessons to be learned here by all of us.

It's such a big problem that esure agreed to meet me,

and what better place than a 500-year-old boozer?

Hope they serve tea!

We've heard how underinsurance is such a big issue,

and the first thing I want to know is,

what is the industry doing about it?

Ironically, during the course of last year,

while all this was going on,

we e-mailed all our customers to say, do the sensible thing.

Go through your house, write everything down.

Put a value on it as to what it would cost to replace that.

That is your contents sum insured.

Don't just take a guess. There's no point in taking a guess.

We've seen cases where people have lost everything in fires,

and you know, it's a modern age, where you can take a photograph

of everything in your house, so you know what's there.

Give it a proper value. We'll give you a proper premium.

Everyone's happy.

Do you not think insurance companies, all companies,

should have a leeway there, and allow for the fact that somebody

who insured an item, that item might have gone up and there should be

a certain amount of leeway to allow for that, for that sort of naivete.

This is exactly, in the end,

what we have judged to have happened in Sadiq's case.

The alarm bells went off originally, but when we've looked into it,

we've apologised to him because he has been one of these people

where he has been caught with the rapid rise of gold prices,

with not having taken specific attention to what's in there

originally, so there was nothing fraudulent about this.

This was a simple burglary

of some items that turned out to be worth much more

than they should've been insured for.

The example you would give in motor insurance

is nobody would be happy if they said, "I've got a Mini,"

and then a claim comes in for a crashed Lamborghini.

Sadiq, after he put that claim in, you said no to that claim

and voided his whole policy.

He was left uninsured, then from that moment onwards.

Why on earth did you do that? He wasn't a criminal.

He hadn't tried to defraud you.

No, and in fact, unreserved apology to Sadiq for that.

-You're putting your hands up and saying it was wrong?

-That was wrong.

Adrian, I want to thank you, especially on behalf of Sadiq,

and hopefully, people have learned here, make sure you're insured,

-and not underinsured.

-Not underinsured.

-Thanks for your time.

-Thank you.

You know, I really appreciate it

when companies come along and meet me face-to-face,

but what's become very obvious after that little chat is,

Sadiq's problem of underinsurance is actually a major issue.

Following on from our chat,

Adrian has earned himself a gold star from me.

He's been true to his word

and e-mailed with a final settlement offer on Sadiq's claim.

And I can't wait to see what the family makes of it.

Right, I'll start off now, with a little bit of a ticking-off,

but it's not just aimed at you guys.

This is probably the majority of people out there right now

who are insured.

You were underinsured, and that is not the fault of esure.

That is your responsibility to make sure that you put in

the claims form and do everything right.

For us, it was a shock, obviously to find that out,

and we will put our hands up, we didn't know.

We didn't expect them to do what they did.

How do you feel now, if I said I hadn't been able to do anything for you,

and you have basically got no money coming,

and you will have trouble insuring yourself again?

I feel as if we are in the wrong, as if we are fraudsters

or something like that, that we've done something wrong.

When we haven't.

esure do agree. They don't think that you've been dishonest.

They don't think you've tried to be devious.

There is a grey area there, because they think you've been

a little bit daft, that you haven't been insured fully.

What they are prepared to do is what's called reinstate your claim.

They're not going to have you listed now,

as being declined insurance.

You will be able to insure yourself.

Fantastic.

Brilliant relief. It is brilliant to draw a line under the chapter.

It's a weight off our shoulders.

I've got some more news for you.

They are now going to pay you out, £16,346.57.

You are, you're pulling our leg!

They've reinstated the claim, and they are going to pay it.

-Let me just give you that figure again. £16,346.57.

-No!

All of it? It is pretty much all of it, isn't it?

It's actually more than all, and let me tell you the reason why.

Not only have they been decent enough to reinstate the insurance,

to pay out and agree to pay out,

they're also going to give you interest on the money

which they would have paid out, had it been eight months ago.

Wow! You can have your gold back.

Yeah!

Well, thank you, Dom!

You're fantastic. People's champion!

-You look gobsmacked!

-Yeah!

I think Sadiq and Mohima are a little bit shell-shocked there,

but I'm really pleased for them. It's a great result.

esure came good in the end, and it's fair to say

Sadiq has learned a valuable lesson in insurance.

And he's not alone. I don't know about you,

but I'm off to check that my policies are up-to-date.

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