By Jo Thornhill
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Victory: Financial Mail championed Ellie Robson's complaint
NatWest has agreed to rewrite its home insurance policy after Financial Mail took up the case of a customer who was refused a payout when she claimed.
Ellie Robson, 28, dropped her iPad and cracked the screen while she was sitting in her garden in May.
She bought the £579 iPad in March when she started a new job as a marketing manager for a computer networking hardware company and thought it would be useful in her new role.
While damaging the iPad screen was a blow, Ellie felt reassured because she had home contents insurance with NatWest and had also paid extra to add accidental damage cover to the policy.
Ellie pays NatWest £178 a year for contents cover, including the accidental damage option. This extra cover can typically represent about 30 per cent of the premium.
But to Ellie’s dismay, the bank rejected her claim with the bizarre excuse that the garden was not part of her home.
‘I was s peechless,’ says Ellie, who lives in Ley Hill, Buckinghamshire, with her boyfriend, Stuart Frisby, 29, a business development manager for an electronics company.
‘I scoured my policy document, but nowhere did it state that the garden was not part of the home and property. It was ludicrous â€" I was really angry.
‘I know my possessions are not covered away from the home, but I hardly think my own back garden constitutes being away from home. NatWest obviously disagreed.’
Ellie, a NatWest customer all her adult life, made a formal complaint but the bank told her that she would have to wait ten days for a response.
After Financial Mail contacted NatWest, spokesman Mark Lester said its accidental damage option was intended to cover damage to electrical items from incidents inside the home.
But he admitted the policy document was not clear and NatWest has now agreed to meet Ellie’s claim.
‘We have reviewed our policy wording following Ellie’s case and we will amend it accordingly to minimise confusion for customers,’ says Lester.
‘We appreciate that more customers are using portable electronic items in the garden so in future we will cover accidental damage that happens in the garden.’
He says that for expensive items such as laptops and iPads used away from the home, customers should add personal possessions cover to their home insurance. This would cover accident s and damage that occur in the garden and away from the home.
Many insurers, including esure, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group, say they would cover accidental damage to personal items such as phones and laptops if the damage happened in the garden of the insured property.
Asia Yasir at esure says: ‘We would deal with this sort of claim on a case-by-case basis, but with the example of the iPad dropped in the garden, we would cover this.’
Kimberley Hamilton of Lloyds Banking Group says: ‘In most cases, provided additional accidental damage cover for contents has been purchased, both Halifax Home Insurance and Lloyds Home Insurance would cover items such as iPads if they were dropped in the garden.’
However, insurer LV= says accidental damage cover is only for items damaged within the four walls of a home.
Matt Reid, director at the insurer protectyourbubble.com, says households should consider stand-alone in surance policies for gadgets and bikes which are more likely to be lost, stolen or damaged and are often used away from the home.
Worldwide cover for an iPad worth £579 with protectyourbubble.com would cost £4.88 a month. There is a £50 excess and there is no cover if the item is simply lost.
‘We are a nation of technophiles with digital music players, smartphones, laptops, Kindles and cameras,’ says Reid, ‘but our portable possessions provide rich pickings for thieves and they are also more likely to be damaged than other items in the home.
‘Consumers who insure these items on their home contents policies run the risk of their premium skyrocketing if they have to make a claim.
‘With specialist gadget cover, consumers can protect any no-claims discount and low premium on their home insurance.’
Are your gadgets guarded when you go outdoors?
Insurance cover for accidental damage and loss while the p olicyholder is away from home are add-ons to general home contents policies.
They are rarely included as standard and insurers are keen to sell this extra with home contents cover. The option for loss away from home, known as personal possessions cover, could be valuable for those who have expensive gadgets such as smartphones, iPads, laptops and cameras which they use regularly while away.
But they must pay for the additional cover â€" and it is expensive.
For example, basic cover for home contents worth up to a total of £40,000 in a standard terraced house in South-East London would start from about £63 a year, according to moneysupermarket.com, the comparison website.
To add accidental damage cover would increase the premium to about £80. Adding personal possessions cover for items worth up to £1,000 would take the premium up to £84.
And to add both accidental damage and personal possessions cover would mean a total premium of £102.
The excess â€" the part of a claim paid by the policyholder â€" is £350.
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