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No policy for it is not the same as nobody to claim from.

A business that decides it has no claim has almost always decided it about one policy. A loss can sit inside another policy of yours, inside a cover in the one you already hold, or inside somebody else’s altogether.

Reference/No policy for it

We take the loss, not the policy. If a business rings this desk with a loss and nothing that looks like cover for it, that is a question worth half an hour of somebody’s time, and it is a question with three places to look.

1Whenever somebody else moved it, built it, or worked on it

The loss is inside somebody else's policy

Goods damaged in transit where no marine cover was ever bought. A contractor's work that damages the building it is being done in. A fire that starts next door and comes through the wall. A vehicle that takes out the boundary and the gate. In each of those the business has no policy of its own that responds, and in each of them the party that caused it is answerable for it and carries cover against exactly that liability.

What it looks like on your file

You are told the loss is uninsured. That is true of your own policies and says nothing at all about anybody else's.

What the desk does about it

We establish who was answerable under the document that governed the work, whether that is the consignment note, the contract or the work order, and put it to them in writing inside the time that document allows, which is usually shorter than anything on your own policy. Then we deal with their insurer, rather than leaving you to argue with a transporter who has stopped taking the call.

The notice that has to go to them

2Found by reading what happened, not what it is called

The loss is inside a different policy of your own

A loss gets filed under the name somebody gave it in the first five minutes, and then only one policy is checked. A refrigeration plant fails and the stock in the chamber spoils: the plant and the stock are two claims and they do not sit in the same place. A machine seizes and starts a fire: the fire is one claim and the machine is another. Property damage and the trading that stops because of it are two claims, and running only the first is the commonest way money is left where it fell.

What it looks like on your file

One policy is checked, it does not respond, and the file is closed. Or it does respond, it pays for the damage, and nobody ever claims the weeks the business could not trade.

What the desk does about it

We read what actually happened against every policy in the file before anything is signed, because a discharge voucher on one of them can quietly close the others.

What each policy actually covers

3In the wording, which is not the certificate

The cover is inside the policy you already hold

Most businesses have read a certificate and a schedule. The cover is in neither. The current Bharat wordings for smaller commercial risks carry extensions built in that nobody has to buy and almost nobody knows are there, and add-ons taken at some past renewal sit in the file unread. What a policy pays is decided by that document, so that document is what gets read.

What it looks like on your file

A claim narrowed or declined on the strength of a summary, when the wording it summarises says something else.

What the desk does about it

We read the wording you actually hold, quote the clause the claim turns on, and tell you plainly when it does not say what you were hoping.

Why the wording gets read out loud

What the desk establishes first

before anything is written

Where a claim can go is decided almost entirely by where the thing was and whose risk it was sitting on at the moment it was damaged. Those are questions of fact, and they are answerable on the first call.

  • Where exactly was it when it was damaged: on the road, at the bay, inside the shed, on somebody else’s site?
  • Whose risk did it sit on at that moment, under the terms of sale?
  • Who moved it, built it or worked on it, and under what document?
  • Who else was on the premises, and whose employee were they?
  • What else is in the policy file besides the policy everybody reached for first?
  • What does the wording say, as against what the certificate says?
Their clockNotice to a transporter, a contractor or a neighbour is governed by the consignment note, the contract or the law that applies to it, not by your policy, and usually on a shorter time than your policy allows. It is the one part of this that cannot be recovered by trying harder later, which is why the first call is about dates.

What this is not

said plainly, once

This is not a way of making a loss covered that is not covered. Sometimes every policy is read, every party is identified, and the answer is still that nothing responds.

When that is the answer you get it on the first call, with the reason, and not after three months of correspondence. Knowing is worth more than hoping, and it is worth a great deal more than a bill for finding out.

What you can hold us to

  • We do not charge to look at where a loss could sit.
  • We do not tell you a claim is arguable when it is not.
  • We do not publish figures or success rates, here or anywhere.
  • Where the answer is a lawyer and not a claim, we say so.

Had a loss, and nothing that looks like a policy for it?

Whoever placed your policy, and whatever stage the claim has reached.

Report a loss   Call 92514 56334

Three deadlines
  • Tell the insurer now, not after the assessment.
  • Notice to anybody else responsible the carrier, the contractor, the police, within the time your policy sets.
  • Every document within the time the insurer asks for it.