Burglary update

The insurance assessor came around last Friday and the news isn't good. Apparently we are unlikely to be successful with our claim because the front door wasn't double locked. This is baffling - the intruder came in through the back door, so it should be irrelevant, really. We never double lock when we're home - who does? There's the argument that you shouldn't because if there was a fire it would make it difficult to escape, or allow firefighters in. A chain lock is considered a secondary lock, but as Rob was out boozing til the wee hours on this particular evening, I wouldn't have put a chain on even if we had one - how would he get inside?

The small print on an insurance policy is badly worded - upon reading and deciphering it turns out that if we'd been burgled and the doors were locked, and the alarm was on but a window was open upstairs, the policy wouldn't pay out! Likewise if any keys were left in any doors (admittedly we used to go to work with the back door key in the door - obviously we've removed it since). If we'd been burgled while we were at work, we could've easily lost 10-15x what we're claiming for and the insurers wouldn't have paid out due to one of their loopholes.

Insurance companies are happy to take your premiums - paid for years in good faith - but it seems they'll do whatever they can do avoid paying out. All this has taught us is to lie: if we'd known the double locking issue was going to be a deal breaker, we could've said the door was double locked.

I'm trying to look at the bright side - this will ensure we question ridiculous policy notes, and secure windows/doors etc - but if we don't get paid out we still have to replace all the stuff that was nicked - around £2,000 worth of gadgets and related bits. Rob's company won't replace his laptop as the excess is so high, so he's using an old one for the forseeable future. The kids won't be getting 20 replacement Nintendo games for their DS Lites. Oh and two weeks after we were robbed we noticed that the Toshiba Journe tablet (pictured) had been stolen too - which we weren't claiming for as they're not even on sale in the UK (it was such a piece of rubbish I expect Toshiba isn't going to bother launching it).

We find out the ruling in the next few days, watch this space.