Upheld: unreasonable claims handling and warranty denial complaint against Assurant General Insurance Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr M claimed on his mobile phone insurance for accidental damage to his flip phone's screen in July 2025. Assurant repaired the phone and returned it with a warranty covering manufacturing faults. Two months later, a screen fault appeared and Assurant declined to repair it under warranty, claiming the damage was customer-induced pressure damage. The ombudsman upheld Mr M's complaint, finding that Assurant provided insufficient evidence to support its warranty denial and that screen bleeding could result from manufacturing defects. The ombudsman required Assurant to repair the phone under the original warranty and pay £100 compensation for distress and inconvenience.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Assurant failed to provide sufficient evidence to support its claim that the warranty was void due to customer-induced pressure damage. While Assurant asserted the large bleed pattern was characteristic of external pressure, it provided no technical evidence to support this conclusion. The ombudsman noted that screen bleeding can result from multiple causes including manufacturing defects, and that the phone had passed quality checks immediately after repair with no obvious faults. Assurant's claim to have an engineer's assessment was undermined when it admitted no repair report was generated. The ombudsman concluded it was fair and reasonable for Assurant to repair the phone under the original warranty.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website