Our mobile phones are insured as part of my Smile bank account. The company providing the insurance are Lifestyle Services Group.
Last January, my wife and I bought new Nexus One phones direct from Google in the US. I immediately registered the IMEI numbers with the insurer, as we’d paid out quite a bit of money for the phones.
About 2 months ago, my wife accidentally dropped her phone and cracked the screen. We checked with the insurer, and yes – it’s covered. All I needed to do was fill in the form and send the proof of purchase, which I did.
The insurer has rejected the claim.
They’ve rejected it because the proof of purchase doesn’t contain the IMEI number. Of course, that’s not my fault. In America, they don’t have the same policies of blocking IMEI numbers as we do, so they’re not so bothered about them.
Naturally the insurers have worded the rejection as me failing to meet the Terms and Conditions of the insurance, thus shifting the blame to me and putting up a inarguable wall of legalese that prevents any kind of compromise or rule-bending.
I registered a Nexus One with that IMEI number 10 months ago. A Nexus One with that IMEI number will be sent to them for repair. There’s a proof of purchase for a Nexus One, from about 10 days before I registered it. There can be no possible question mark over the phone’s rightful owner.
The insurer told me to get proof from the network (T-Mobile) that we’d been using the phone with my wife’s account*. However, they have so far failed to do so. The customer service agents are invariably stupid and have no idea what we’re talking about and so we’ve had responses from “We don’t have that information, as we didn’t sell you the phone” (a lie, they do have that information) to “OK, we’ll send you a letter” which has never materialised.
Like all insurers, they’re basically doing anything they can not to pay out. The rules are for their advantage and not ours. So despite owning a phone, being able to prove that we own the phone having registered that phone almost a year ago, and despite being supposedly insured, it seems that we’re not going to get a pay-out.
We’re appealing the decision, but haven’t got much hope unless the T-Mobile pull through with some sort of proof.
*This begs the question: if I bought a phone, got it insured, but broke it before I turned it on and therefore never registered it on the network, would it still be insured?
Incidentally, Lifestyle Services Group are the people behind the appalling Airport Angel. Clearly a company that prides itself on awful service and useless products.
UPDATE 13/01/11:
They’ve now agreed to honour the claim, after we sent them the evidence of usage they were looking for. In order to get this out of T-Mobile, we had to send a request in writing and threatening them with the Data Protection Act. Neither company comes out of this particularly well, but at least the phone will now be fixed or replaced.
