got a laptop (or anything else for that matter) want to make some cash ? fear not My Gf has the asnwer!

So I treated myself to my first laptop about 5 months back, got a bargain imo costing £530 with the following spec:

22" 1080 HD screen
4 gig ram
think it was duel 2.6 ghz
500gb HD
1gig gfx(512 dedicated rest shared)
blue ray player
Finger print scanner.

anyway one day while MY GF was on the latop shes decided to have a nice instant caramel caffe latte sache drink thing, i think she didnt like it as she decided to let my laptop have it... all of it!!!!!

this must have been the 1 time i regreted not buying the extended warrantee, we decided to claim on house insurance though and damn am i glad we did! after many calls a lot of waiting (process must have taken over 6 weeks) we eventualy got our claim agreed by a very nice chap on the phone, stating "now i know you paid £529.99, i have the reciept in front of me, but for us to replace this like for like with our discount it will cost us £860 so after your £50 excess we'll be sending you £810"


Laptop -£530
coffee -£1
Refund +£810

PROFIT - £279!!


so from now on Im keeping sticky coffee drinks in stock at all times haha

doesnt it raise your insurance rate when you make a claim or is that just dumb auto insurance?

maybe you're missing something, when you claim something on your insurance in North America your rates go up, significantly and disproportionately, maybe it's not the same in Britain.

ah i didnt think of that

dont know aout in the US but in the UK for a very small additional fee we can protect our "no claims discount" usualy with guidlines like no more than 2 claims per year etc. the whole idea being when you do claim it doesnt penalise you unless you claim excessivly.

I think a lot of it depends on your claim history and type of claim. I had to have my roof replaced and two cars repaired because of hail damage last year, all on the same policy total of $8-$10k claim I think it was, and my rate did not change. I also got the cars fixed for about $600 less then the insurance company's recommended repair place and because the roofer made a mistake and put the wrong color shingles on my house about 2k less then bottom estimate and 6k less then the high estimate on the roof. And my wife likes these shingles better ... go figure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Caspian',index.php?page=Thread&postID=207796#post 207796

I think a lot of it depends on your claim history and type of claim. I had to have my roof replaced and two cars repaired because of hail damage last year, all on the same policy total of $8-$10k claim I think it was, and my rate did not change. I also got the cars fixed for about $600 less then the insurance company's recommended repair place and because the roofer made a mistake and put the wrong color shingles on my house about 2k less then bottom estimate and 6k less then the high estimate on the roof. And my wife likes these shingles better ... go figure.

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We recently had a hailstorm of marble-sized hail here. Too bad that it didn't actually damage my roof. My roof is about 50 years old (25 year shingles LOL) and in dire need of replacement. If there was a way, I'd get the house insurance to cover the new roof.

Surprised nobody's mentioned that it's very likely insurance fraud....

I don't see it as fraud.

The OP gave the receipt for the actual price of the laptop to the claims adjuster.
The claims adjuster choose to pay out the greater amount, for whatever reason.

If you had claimed the laptop cost you 1000 when it only cost 600, that would be fraud.
Having given them the correct information, and the insurance company choosing to give you more is not fraud.
I'm not sure if the adjuster's supervisor would be terribly happy, but even if they made an error, the OP did not lie/cheat/steal or commit fraud.

Yeah, it seems to me the insurance companies are only in the business of collecting premiums, when it comes to paying out claims they have lots of small print.

Back when I was younger I had 2 claims within the first 3 years of being with "a major auto insurance carrier", and found out that was grounds for dropping you. 2 claims in 3 years, i wouldn't say that was excessive - though I've only ever had one more claim in the 12 years since then on the company I changed to, it seems like they screwed themselves by not keeping me around. 15 years of premiums > 3 claims bay a long shot.