Britons are warned they face massive bills by failing to check whether their insurance documents have their appliances covered.
Homeowners are being left thousands of pounds out of pocket after swapping gas boilers for heat pumps and finding out they don’t have the right insurance cover.
Many people are finding their insurance deals don’t cover emergency repairs for their heat pumps, causing them to fork out thousands for the repairs.
Britons are having to turn to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to provide answers as some policies remain vague.
In previous cases, the Ombudsman has said: “It’s our approach – and our approach mirrors the law – that if any term in an insurance contract isn’t clear, it should be interpreted in favour of the policyholder.”
Home emergency insurance usually covers quick fixes to urgent problems such as leaking central heating systems or gas pipes and excludes electrical alternatives such as heat pumps.
Financial data experts Defaqto said 24 percent of home emergency insurance deals do not cover electrical central heating systems such as heat pumps.
Angela Pilley, a home insurance expert at Defaqto, said: “It is not currently clear in all policy wordings whether ground source heat pumps are classified under the definition of ‘electric heating system’, so it certainly should not be assumed that this is the case.
“If a consumer is looking to change or upgrade their heating system then it is essential that they check with the home emergency provider to see if cover would be in place for these types of heating systems.
“We are seeing policy wordings develop to more clearly include or exclude these modern heating systems, but as this is not yet the case with all providers, consumers need to double check to be certain.”
Despite huge bills, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is encouraging Britons to make the switch from gas boilers to heat pumps.
The Government’s boiler upgrade scheme will offer people money towards the cost of replacing fossil fuel heating systems with a heat pump or biomass boiler.
The grant was first launched in 2022 and was worth £5,000 or £6,000 depending on the type of heat pump.
But Mr Sunak has raised it to £7,500, saying: “The boiler upgrade scheme which gives people cash grants to upgrade their boiler will be increased by 50 percent to £7,500. There are no strings attached. The money will never need to be repaid.”
In total, the scheme is expected to pay for 90,000 installations and will run until the end of March 2025.
