Don't want to be shafted by my insurance company

[flimeyfred]

Back in January my house was burgled and my laptop and several other items were stolen. I am now having issues with my insurance company who orginally offered me a really cheap Toshiba or £300, whereas my orginal HP laptop had been a specified item on my insurance for £1000. I spoke with a chap from HP who reckoned the equivalent model now to my orginal laptop would be one of the HP dv8 range.

The insurance people are now offering me a Toshiba L550-17T.

I don't really know a lot (anything!) about computers but I know what I had was a pretty good one, and I don't want to take anything that isn't as good. What do people reckon to this offer? What would be a good alternative?

Thanks

[peterb]

The specs for that laptop are here - and it is selling for around £320 +VAT.

You need to factor in the age of the laptop though, and the fact that price tends to come down as performance goes up.

The DV8 range is considerably more (£1,300) so your insurance company seems to vbe trying to get away with paying the minimum.

You need to write down the specs of the laptop you had stolen, and compare it with the Toshiba and what you consider to be the equivalent machine to the one stolen. You also need to consider the policy wording as they may be taking depreciation into account. There is scope for negotiation though, but if it was insured for £1,000, that is the maximum you will get..

Good luck, and welcome to Hexus - sorry it is with a tale of woe.

[Jay]

if you insured it for £1000 then you should get upto that value.

[Guy]

if you insured it for £1000 then you should get upto that value.

Ah but is this like car insurance? You may well put down the value of the item is X amount, but thats certainly not what you get paid. Whatever the market rate at the time is what they will usually pay out.

[jim]

Quite. You can hardly buy a painting from a car boot, have it insured for £2m and then start a chip pan fire and expect to receive £2m in cash.

Only sensible approach is to get the exact specs, and then find an equivalent current model. I'm sure if you posted the full specs up someone would give you a hand in finding something equal to it.

[CWH]

It really does depend on the wording of your insurance policy. Ours have a 'like for like' clause, but even that, in and of itself, isn't enough.
A friend lodged a claim under his 'like for like' for a laptop that was stolen and the Insurance Company wanted the details of the components in the laptop. Once they had that, they said that a current laptop with the equivalent 'horsepower' was substantially cheaper than his stolen one, and offered a replacement based on that.
In the meantime, my Wife had her laptop stolen while visiting someone's office, and our 'like for like' clause worked on the face value as declared to our Insurance Company, so she ended up with what is a more powerful machine all round.
Don't forget though, that you don't have to accept the first price they quote you, no matter if it's a car or a computer. Always go back to them and argue!

Colin