Insurance - be warned

Well here’s the follow up to the sorry saga of my stolen Monster 750 Corse.
After getting a derisory cheque of £3740 less my £200 excess making it £3540 through the post from Hastings Direct, with no cover or offer letter with it, although this did arrive in the post about 3 days later

This amounts to an almost £3000 loss in less than 3 years and with the no claims loss I’ve no chance of being able to replace the bike.
I naturally turned to the broker who was Carole Nash. I told them that I believed Hastings Direct hadn’t taken into account the fact that the bike, although 2.5 years old was still ‘as new’ having only done 1700 miles, and the special dealer edition factor also didn’t seem to cut any ice. Hastings Direct asked for adverts to substantiate my claim, but I wrote back saying how can I do that when to my knowledge there was only about a dozen bikes done like that and at the time of purchase it was the first 750 and more than likely the only 750 to be so done. It was also a further problem in that with Chris Clarke’s closing I had no chance of getting any back-up letter from the dealer and originator of the work.

Anyway, we have had about 2 months of to-ing and fro-ing, and having repeated requests from Hastings Direct to supply adverts despite my writing to explain time and again I wish I could.
The big issue here is the appalling level of customer service from Hastings Direct, via Carole Nash. I was promised on 3 occasions that Hastings Direct would write to me about the matter, NO letter ever arrived. After talking to Carole Nash again, this particular time being the only time in communication with Carole Nash that I talked to someone with some customer service skills, he had talked to Hastings and left a message for one of their engineer assessors who would call me to discuss this problem.
Of course no phone call was ever forthcoming and Carole Nash have told me this morning that the reason Hastings Direct won’t up the offer is because I didn’t declare the mods.
Bo****ks I said, one of the reasons I changed to Carole Nash was to make sure the paint job etc was covered and when I got the quote I specifically told Carole Nash about the mods, and was told that’s fine and the mods would be covered.
Well it wasn’t apparently and it’s my fault for not checking the certificates when I received them and making sure the items declared were written on the certificate
At that point I’m afraid, to use a famous Geilgud line from the film ‘Battle of Britain’….
�It’s unforgivable, I lost my temper�

The sad little muppet on the other end of the line got a good verbal pasting :twisted:

So, it seems that’s it, I was going to take it up with the Insurance Ombudsman service, but I’ve just discovered it’s now defunct and there is only the general financial ombudsman service to go through

Anyway, it’s great to be wise after the event, but I urge anyone to check that any declared mods are stated on your documents, and if any one is insured with Hastings Direct or Carole Nash…..go somewhere else.....it could happen to you.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Monster ownership while it lasted, and to those of you I met through this fine organisation, and especially to Terry, Grunt and Marky for the laughs
I’ve still got an as new battery and a pair of 200 mile use only standard cans if anyone requires them.

All the best to you all, :burnout:

What a tale, you must be double gutted! First to have your bike nicked then to have your insurance company pull that old scam on you, you're not the first person to be done over like that but at least when I had my crash last year I could argue the toss with the insurance assessor (who wanted to write it off) to get my bike rebuilt, if it had been nicked the derisory 9k they offered me for a 3 week old 998 wouldnt have gone far
Good luck, dont let it put you off!
May not be the same as your dearly beloved corse 750 but there's some nice 2nd hand bikes on the site for sale.
:burnout:

[CK & AK]

Blimey Graham - what a sorry saga for you!

Have you got another bike on the road now - or will it be many eons before then?

Charlotte

[madhatter]

Originally Posted by Corsepilot

.....Anyway, it’s great to be wise after the event, but I urge anyone to check that any declared mods are stated on your documents, and if any one is insured with Hastings Direct or Carole Nash…..go somewhere else.....it could happen to you....

Very sorry to here of this fella. Only consolation I can give, is that you have made me aware that my plastic bodywork and carbon goodies are not stated as covered on my Carole Nash documents. I'll get a quote in for as new replacement and ensure that Carole Nash stick this on my policy documents, even at the risk of a few more ££s on the premium. So you may have saved someone else a similar fate.

I know it's a poor sum they have left you with, but there are some well cared for second hand Monsters with lots of trick bits, regularly coming up for sale on this forum.....don't let "The Man" get you down, stick your finger well and truely up in his face and get back out there on another Monster! :twisted:

Remind me I owe you a Pint if we ever meet up!

Charlotte,
No, I won't be getting another bike for a while, not a practical proposition at the moment.
Next spring when my current work contract ends, almost certainley the next job will be in the city somewhere or nearby vacinity, so I'm going to wait till then and then maybe buy something appropiate to whatever the commute is going to be. That maybe an secondhand M620 but depending on other factors it may have to be a cheap as chips twist'n'go something or other

Other long term options maybe going back to my roots and look for a neglected A10 and restore as an RGS replica.....

The missus has also hinted that something that has a somewhat more relaxed and comfy pinion for her would nice....hinting at a Hardly Ridable

If I do get a new bike of whatever desription, in the future I sure as hell will be paying a few hundred quid for GAP insurance.

The other point I've got to consider is because the Monster was taken from my locked garage, everyone from the Police to the guy who fitted the replacement garage door has warned that the general MO of these towrags is to wait 6 months or so and come back and do you again on the assumption that you've been paid out and replaced everything....

Which may mean having a word with a few contacts and setting up the garage door with some booby trapped Mk9 Thunderflashes :twisted:

i think you should be allowed to set up your garage door with claymoors............... so what if the scumbag gets killed......... bottom line is he would still be alive and safe had he not been in a place he shouldnt have !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! feckin lefties make me sick............. if i catch you on/in my property i should have the right to beat you as hard as i feel fits the crime................. anyway, as far as my case is looking, the engineer has just been round........ says i'm looking at a total loss !!!!!!!!!! now my claim is based on a standard bike......... have removed all carbon goodies and termigs etc............. fingers crossed i'll be riding soon

[madhatter]

Originally Posted by peteS4

i think I should have the right to beat you as hard as i feel fits the crime

Now here's a man with an opinion on scumbag burglers and thiefs that matches my own!!

The law (and Little Monster will probably correct me) as I understand it says something like "you have a right to protect yourself, your familly and your possessions with reasonable force that matches the perceived threat". In other words if someone breaks into your house and comes at you with a knife, you can respond with the force that you felt necessary to protect yourself, if they have a gun, you can similarly respond with the force that seems reasonable under the circumstances. If they are standing with their hands in their pockets, regrettably you can not blow their head clean off with a 12 bore. I'd be inclined to say I saw him come at me out of the garage with a long screwdriver and thats why I hit him twice with the pickaxe handle m'lud, to disarm him, and I deeply regret the fact that during this both his arms were broken!

Sorry for all the waffle....did you have an alarm fitted? What sort of ant-theft devices did you have? (lock&chain, disc lock etc).

or i guess in my case, i could just go out in my leathers............. the poor git would **** himself laughing............... and just how much of a threat can you be with pee running down your inside leg !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by madhatter

Sorry for all the waffle....did you have an alarm fitted? What sort of ant-theft devices did you have? (lock&chain, disc lock etc).

Didn't have alarm, dealer originally advised against it as on a Duc would be more trouble than it's worth. Anyway an alarm might not have worked in this case as the bike's battery was sitting on my kitchen floor attached to the battery charger at the time

The bike was all Datatagged, and I had recently bought an expensive Propa-Lok ground anchor & chain, but my cordless hammer drill wasn't man enough to make an impression on the concrete floor to fix the bolts. Because of other time commitments I hadn't got around to hiring the neccessary gennie and tools to fix it in to the slab. So it was sitting in the box by the bike, and of course the scum nicked that as well, not to mention emptying the garage of all my tools....

And to cap it all they took an aerosol can from my garage and graffiti 'tagged' the broken garage door just for fun.....