Woolworths Home and Contents Insurance

I was robbed beside my garage and the Insurance classified this event as out of home robbery which resulted in paying $800 of the claim that was about $4,000.

Anyhow, that was not so terrible as it was the claim process. I called the Insurance 3 to 4 times over a period of 2 months and had to wait between 30min and 45min each time I called. To check the progress of the claim, i would send an e-mail with reference nimber and all relevant details to them, however, the emails were never responded to.
I would never recommend Woolworths Insurance to anyone, even though their price was very competitive.

Had a burst flexi pipe in powder room on Australia day, 4am. Rang woolworths emergency line - and to be fair they where great. Make safe team arrived 12 hours later and did their best to "make safe the house" but was not possible with two children under 3. Was advised to request accommodation.

Requested 3 months accommodation as was suggested by emergency accommodation team - 3 days later was provided 2 weeks - had to stay at the in laws for a few nights while this was sorted.

Accommodation provided - first night was put into a 1 bedroom apartment for a family of 4. Go figure. (move 2)

Upgraded to very small 2 bedroom apartment next day. note - had to check out @ 11 and check back in @2pm... not simple when juggling children and trying to live from a hotel room. (move 3)

Upgraded to a decent size 2 bedroom suite. requested extension as nothing had moved forward on claim - was approved 2 days prior to needing to move out. Of course by this point our accommodation had been booked by someone else and we had to move out anyway. (move 4)

Due to this accommodation pain, absolutely no proactive action on the behalf of claims central or the insurance company and repeated denied requests to book something longer stay and more appropriate for our family - we decided to move into my parents for 2 weeks. (move 5) Caused significant family and relationship strain. Difficult to maintain anything resembling normality. at this point had to pull the eldest from child care - and lost his spot, and was missing swimming lessons due to travel now being too far. He was also plagued by nightmares/night terrors at this point and often woke crying in the night.

Moved back to in-laws who went on a cruise (thankfully) move 6.

Requested to be put back into accommodation again only provided 2 weeks. (move 7). provided extension at the 11th hour for another 2 weeks - by chance we didn't have to move this time.

Raised a formal complaint around now, as had been 36 days, we had no notice that our claim had been approved, no work had occurred in the house and mould was starting to grow and spread in the house. Was told I wasn't allowed to do any repair work myself (I wanted to remove all the carpet so we could clean the floors and move home!

3 days after raising formal complaint - was notified by the dispute department that the claim will be approved and ill be contacted shortly - same day was rung by woolworths insurance "congratulations your claim has been approved".

congratulations? at this point we have moved 7 times, often at the 11th hour facing homelessness instead, mould had continued to grow and damage my house, and the claim had gone 20 days beyond your business agreed review time - yet congratulations??... anyway.

The only good part of the process was the building company engaged was excellent, friendly, communicative and a pleasure to liaise and deal with.

we moved a further 5 times due to poor and last minute renewals and requests. each time was a battle on my behalf and each time took at least 3-4 hours of phone calls/sitting on hold. The amount of hours I spent on hold to either woolworths or claims central is disgusting. 9 times out of 10 claims central would not call back when they promised too, and our claims manager actively avoided my calls.

We were forced to move home before the house was repaired - with 3 days notice. (notified Thursday that accommodation would not extend past (Easter) Sunday).

Repairs were not finished on the house, and we were notified the day before Easter Friday we needed to move home on the Sunday. The house was not safe for children with carpet glue stuck to the floor, floor nails exposed from the carpet tracks, the powder room had an exposed sewer pipe since the toilet had been ripped out, and that room had no door, there was chipped and broken tiles all over the place, and the house and garage looked like a construction zone. Yet - we had to move home and no further accommodation would be provided. I attempted to escalate the call, and the lady who answered my escalation request answered the phone in a hostile manner with "You want to speak to me?" how's that for customer service. She categorically denied accommodation extension and didn't care that I had to somehow make safe my house after being told I can't touch it, and ive got 3 days to do so over a public holiday period.

I had to personally arrange accommodation for another week, then provide time and materials personally to make safe the house to move home, as I am a day rate contractor (in a single income family) this resulted in economic loss for us, eating into our savings, and maxing out our credit card.

Now I guess the silver lining is that our claim was paid, and the house was repaired the last 3.5 months (it's almost finished anyway). The process has taken a terrible toll on my family, on my childrens mental and emotional growth, my wifes mental health, our relationship - and the repeated moves for which no assistance was provided has aggravated an old back injury to the point it is almost as bad as prior to my most recent surgery, this has severely impacted my quality of life, and caused financial hardship with increased costs in pain medication and specialist appointments.

I'm actually not sure who was worse in this whole process - Woolworths insurance, or Claims Central. I wish had read more reviews prior to thinking "it will never happen to us, we won't really need insurance". either way - I will never use either provider again.

I do not know how you accept liability for wall and ceiling damage after storm but deny roof liability,
What i can say, i already expreesed my self on the facebook page but it was deleted.

Lodged a claim and it took 3 months to resolve, many phone calls and waiting time up to 45 min. each time to speak to someone. NO communication and promises to phone back by Claims Central and Ins customer Sc did not happen. Email sent with a promise of 5 day response did not happen. I documented verbatim all conversations and the time taken because of the fabrication of excuses that were be provided for lack of progress, information, reports we had to be revised 3X due to being incorrect. Claims Central was the main issue, they went from bad to worse even after claim was finalised I continue to receive calls from trades advising Claims Central appointed then to do work on my property. No less than a huge fiasco.

Had a straight forward claim for damage from a burst water main. Told by Urban Utility guy who repaired the water main, to claim through my insurance company as it would be quicker. What a joke, told by assessor he would try and get someone out to help clean up, but no one did and when I phoned him, went to message bank and still waiting for a reply. Had to clean the mess up myself and at 77 years of age found it very hard. Phoned three weeks later to find out what was happening to be told they were waiting for estimates which would only be 24 to 48 hours. Three weeks later, phoned again to be told they were waiting for prices for damaged items and so it went on. Have finally been paid out but the whole process was like pulling teeth, and when you consider it wont be coming out of their pocket, as they will claim against Urban Utilities, it was a harrowing experience, I would hate to be making a major claim against them as I'm sure it would take years to get satisfaction if at all.

Terrible, terrible insurance company. I previously LOVED Woolworths but will no longer even be shopping there given they are associated with this very poorly organised insurance company. We lodged a claim months ago for an oven we needed replaced through landlord insurance. They never got back to us so months later I chased them. They responded weeks later saying they needed further documentation and have since gone quiet no matter how many times I have tried to contact them. Seriously poor and disappointing from such a big brand like Woolworths.

Claim was made back on Nov 4th for a kitchen fire and some associated damage. Initially some work and good action was taken however since early this year things have just about stalled. No work, poor quality of work, being left chasing individual trades, no response or feedback from Woollies or Claims Central. Just poor. Do NOT sign up with such insurance. Lodging formal complaint today, seeking legal advice...

They ran a promotion offering 20,000 Woolworths rewards points for new policies. Points to be paid within 45 days of the first premium. After 45 days and no points I contacted them. 60 days after the first premium being paid, 5 emails and phone calls later I've not received my points. They've lied to me about why the points haven't been paid. First was a lie that it was to be 45 business days rather than 45 days. This was completely untrue and contrary to the written terms of the offer. I provided evidence of this but they still din't award the points. Then they said they had system wide problems. Then they said that someone was looking in to it. Then they said that the points would be paid by last Monday. Of course all of this never happened and they were just being dishonest and trying to get out of their promises. Fact is Woolworths Insurance has breached the terms of their offer and they just don't care. Woolworths Insurance do not care about customers at all. If they can't get this right and try to get out of their obligations I know that they can never be trusted to pay out if I made a claim. Just don't risk it. DO NOT USE WOOLWORTHS INSURANCE.

I received my annual renewal which was $30 more per month or $360 extra per year. So I cancelled it and of course no refund for the $107 just paid!

Started my policy during the tenats occupation of my home.

On taking the property back found damage and destruction due to lack of care during and on vacate.

Called for insurance assessor to come.

claim was inspected, report was forwarded and after a long wait Woolies paid out at a rate i feel compensated me for the damage done to the property.

Yes, i had to follow them up, yes, i did have to wait on the phone for long periods of time (45 mins a couple of times Woolies u should look at this is a bit excessive)

BUT

They did pay, the people were for all intensive purposes helpful and considerate and given I had a private agreement for lease and gave all that was requested of me to Woolies re inspections and proof of rent payments etc.. they still paid me without delay.

Thanks Woolies.

I can make my home a bit more whole again.

Would never rent it out again,
Would use Woolies for rental protection again

I had signed up with Woolworths home and contents again after moving back into my home.
I went to get a quote for my partial denture as I dropped it down the drain when cleaning my bathroom. The technician asked if I was claiming through my household insurance.

First I had heard that this could posdibly be coveted i had no idea.

So over 5 weeks I have been bounced back and forward. I have only been emailed weekly from WW claims department and then called after I had jumped through the hoops with very average communication to provide a quote and then was told I would need to send in the recent from my original receipt for my denture from 3 years ago.

I provided the receipt and asked for acknowledgment of receipt and as per usual I received none.

I then called the 1300 number to be told I was not covered.

In short I was annoyed, they made me jump through hoops and then when I asked for the call to be escalated I was told by Marissa no team leaders were available as they were all in a meeting. She promised me if she could get no team leader to call back she would. I believed her no call came that day.
On the 3rd of April I emailed WW claims and still have received no reply.

You can make up your own mind but I think this is terrible customer service and uneducated staff.

They just don't respect their small customers or staff to leave them so I'll equipped!

Michele

5 weeks since the claim. Tenants frustrated, can't live in the property, complained to QCAT, plan to move.
Should've read reviews first. Don't bother with scripted apology, just progress 917021

We were broken into in aug 2018. We are still trying to get some settlement. With all the fine print they have in their policies they will pay out what you think you were covered for.
When you make a claim there are constant delays. They hope you will give up. Your premium is set on a high figure but they will never pay out on that figure, it is all a con.

Research shows that they are cheap.
Unfortunately, cheap is not good value.

I have landlord insurance.
In January, my property's pipe burst and damaged the vanity.
I put in a claim to Woolworths.
I was hand-balled to a company called Johns Lyng who would do a lesser job (keep old bench-top and replace damage with standard cabinets) but would do it through insurance. Well, I am not happy with the old bench top but the price was good.

I paid the $500 excess and waited. And waited.
Well, here I am in April, with a tenant using a damaged vanity and still no repair. I am to the point of lowering the rent.

Johns Lyng send out an alert every week.
You click on the link, log in, go to your jobs, go to your task, go to your comments...and it says "still waiting...". A waste of time but I'm sure it looks good on their KPIs.

So I have finally decided to go to Allianz or Terri Sheer and so I give Woolworths a call about my claim.
I gave up at 30 minutes. I didn't realise that "24/7" was the amount of time you wait in queue and not their availability.

They have a message every 40 second that tell you they won't be long. I heard that 45 times.

Luckily, my policy is up in 2 weeks.

I had a first insurance claim of my life and unfortunately it came with Woolworth. Its been more than 4 months and almost every second day I have to call the claim team and request them to check my case. Every time I have been asked to call after few days and then same story: we are going to process this now.
On top of this there are some people in the claim team they are very rude e.g. someone named [name removed] and [name removed] - the manager who takes forever to respond, they are extremely unprofessional people.
I have two insurance policies with Woolworth, I will move out from Woolworth.

After our first year of house insurance the policy was automatically charged at a much higher rate to our expired credit card for the second year. The person that answered my call said this is their "normal" policy and that I could cancel the policy. Still waiting for the $1900 refund after 17 days. I would hate to see how long a claim would take to be paid if you made one. I would suggest that everyone that has a problem that isn't resolved to contact the "Financial Services Ombudsman Australia" to assist them with a resolution.

This policy is not worth the money.

Check PDS , page 14 , clause 10.

Clause 10. Caused by water that has seeped or percolated into your building.

Damage was caused by storm water to our ground floor granny flat two years ago.
I filed a claim and soon after, a hard line assessor arrived.

I was told that I would not be able to claim due to clause 10, water seepage.

The storm water level was 50 mm above the floor level. Storm water had flowed into our home because of a flash flood.

The storm water possibly entered through our brick air vents .

Only after a builder submitted a letter describing what had really happened was a limited claim allowed.

The builder in question was a nominated member of Woollies recommended repair builders.

I guess any further claims would be met with the same distain, so why bother to renew this policy.

We were with Woollies (Hollard Insurance) for 3 years before the claim.

How Woollies home insurance won the Bozo Expert Award 2017 is beyond me.

Woolworths seems like good value for money but in reality they are worthless policies. Like dominos pizza they use an optional pricing model by trying to receive more money for extras others include as standard. Recently was on hold for 40 minutes just to be told my policy didn’t cover my $3099 shower screen because I accidentally broke it myself. What is the point of insurance. Not interested in anything Woolworths has to offer ever again!!

Have been with them for few years, didn't make any claim at all, though the price soar evey year.
This year I requested to cancell my policy after they have charged my Credit Card Automatically, and got the advise that they will refund the funds. Over 2 weeks time, I didn't received any refund, so I send email to reminder them that should be a refund occure, no response. Another 2 weeks passed, I have to ring them to chase my money, then I got the reponse that they couldn't refund my funds as my Credit Card in their system shows it has been expired.
Wondering why they can charg my Credit Card if it has been expired but refund? How comes that I didn't get anyone reply of the reason about why they couldn't do the refund through my email until I ring them? Is that mean if I haven't contact them after I was waiting 15 mins over the phone, I might never know the reason and would never get my money back.
Hard to imaging if I do have any claim, what would they do.

Received an email from Woolworths insurance offering 10% discount for shopping at Woolworths supermarkets.
Scanned the rewards card with the wife's card. "Sorry no discount.
Just another supermarket SCAM.
That's why I DON'T shop at Willie's.