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help needed.. ive had my gelert 8 berth monsoon tent stolen last week from my mums garage which we were renting.

now insurance company are requesting the instruction leaflet that goes with this tent and well hey presto it was in the tent bag where you would normally have it to help with putting up the tent..

can anyone help me with either posting a copy of theirs or if they have a booket lying around that they no longer need. i would be very grateful. otherwise its looks like insurance comp are not going to be very helpful..

they also said can i supply a photo of mum with tent.. well i only rented the garage not my mum, so i ve not got any photos to show.. what else can i do to prove that the tent was mine, as i dont have the receipt either unfortuately we bought it brand new for cash.  any help would be appreciated

Insurance companies make me so mad. They take your money and god help you if you need to claim off them.

I recently had to make a claim when our pc got damaged. after making the 1st call I then had to wait over a week to speak to someone else who interviewed me for an hour by phone to describe exactly how the damage had occurred. after this i was told i would have to take it to an independant pc engineer to get a damage report, it was a write off, not worth repairing. i also had to take photos of the damage, show proof of purchase documents, I didn't have the original receipt but we had bought it on finanace, so had to contact the finace people for a statement to show we had paid for it.  and send them with the report, which cost me £20btw. They said I had to get all the information they required to them within 10 days or the claim would be cancelled. It was then weeks before it went to settlement and I had to send off the £100 excess payment.

 Four weeks later they replaced the pc, and sent me a replacemant which arrived the day AFTER they said it would,  which had no speakers. i informed them and another week and several calls later it turned out that the pc sound system was faulty and they had to send a new pc. Had to take another day off work while I waited in all day for them to collect the faulty one, and supposed to deliver new one same day. No replacement arrived, another day off the next day and it arrives, guess what, still no speakers,more phone calls to the supplier , and the the insurers they eventually arrived three days later.

i was telling my sister who works in insurance about their slow settlement and she said that a lot of people don't bother because it's too much hassle and just give up on the claim. she told me the hour long interview was in fact a lie detector test. they ask questions which they record your answers to and keep asking them, phrased slightly different to see if they can catch you out.

I had to agree with her the hassle they put customers through is just not worth the stress it causes, it cost me £120 with the excess and the report, Then there the time it took to take it to the engineers and collect it again, I took the photos and then had to install my camera software on someone elses pc to copy the pictures, Took 3 days off work waiting in for deliverys, and some 20 odd phone calls for a pc which is probably only worth £400. I had forgotten to send in the bill for the report, but it was too much hassle to bother arguing with them yet again over it.

Good luck with your claim, don't give up, they're probably just trying it on, but don't bank on them forking out quickly, it could be months.