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“Your Policy Just Got Better”… Did it E&L? No, it just got more expensive.

Tuesday, 29 March 2016 insurance photos

Five words to chill the heart. Becki from E&L, the people who insure my cameras, wrote to me today to let me know the outstanding news that I get to pay more money for something I never asked for.

I’m not sure why I’m so surprised…

I have a couple of cameras. They expensive enough that I’d feel bad if stolen or destroyed. To offset this risk —and my anxiety— I pay E&L (The Equine and Livestock Insurance Company Ltd) about £6 every 4 weeks to insure it all.

Scanned letter

Yeah, 4 weeks… Because with “lunar months” they get to bill 13 times a year, not 12. But that’s not what this is about.

Redefinitions of “month” and “lunar month” aside, I was happy enough with the arrangement. I was insuring something with a high value to me for relatively little money.

But they exhausted my tolerance this morning.

Long story short, they’re increasing my premium by 30% and adding three super-low risk policy “features” that I’ll almost certainly never use.

And it all automatically kicks in unless I do something

s I don’t get the arrogance here. The language in their letter talks about these improvements like they’re the second coming… Which is stupid. If I needed this sort of cover, I would have asked and paid for it pro-actively. I was more than adequately insured before this.

Of course I can see why they do this. People are, statistically speaking, lazy idiots. If you tell us you’re doing something for our betterment, why wouldn’t you believe us. You even said FREE OF CHARGE and 20% DISCOUNT in capitals. That’s free stuff for me then, right?

Well thanks but no thanks. I’m now looking for alternative insurance and will happily take recommendations here.

Just stepping back, you get an indication of the scale of this shake down by the simple fact that E&L has a upgrade-declination page. E&L does a lot of types of insurance and this page covers all of them. What else are they extending cover for without solicitation? Third wheels on bicycles? 50% more legs on horses?

Seems I’m not the only person unhappy with E&L. Only a little reading around and you’ll find them nicknamed E&Hell. Searching for that should give you some idea of how bad insurance can be at times. If you’re looking for a recommendation, I’d strongly suggest you find another insurer.