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Re: ISE Insurance backed Warranty?
quickwash wrote:PS – It all came out in the wash! :rotl:
Quite.
This is one area I can write on with some expertise, having (mis)spent years writing insurance small print for a very large name in the insurance business.
Bits of paper from insurance companies are designed to give the recipient of the said bit of paper a measure of confidence. They are very rarely read carefully, almost never understood and, no matter what they say or to what extent they form the basis for a legal contract, when it comes to the bit, in the event of a claim, the settlement, if any, is whatever the insurance company decides to pay.
In the event of a dispute the insurance company always has more resources than the client to fight the matter in court and before the matter ever arrives in court the insured will have had to notch up very considerable legal charges which are not going to be paid by the insurer should the matter be settled on the doorstep of the court. Let’s face it, if the insured has the financial resources to take on an insurance company in court, the insured would be infinitely better off self-insuring — in other words, carrying the risk himself.
As has been pointed out several times in this thread, we’re living in an unstable era with even banks which have been stable since the 17th Century collapsing all around us. It’s a mess of the first order in which no-one can assume that there is adequate financial stability to guarantee any undertaking into the future whether by retailer, manufacturer, or insurance-backed guarantee. Documents are probably not worth the paper they’re written on, in practical terms.
Treat any warranty as a POSSIBLE resource to call on should there be problems — there’s no such thing as a cast iron guarantee. ISE’s is probably better than most of them and I’m sure they are trying honestly to provide a measure of protection for customers. Forum members have rightly drawn attention to the measure of confusion that exists — but if they were to dig closely enough into the warranties provided by others they would find equally-serious holes, though not necessarily the same ones.
Re: ISE Insurance backed Warranty?
I have mentioned this in an email to ISE, but can I just point out that the home page http://www.iseappliances.co.uk/ still states “Our machines are built to the highest standards, with long guarantees (insurance underwritten).” I know the website is due to be re-done but thought this line may be one that could be removed to avoid any further confusion.
Getting access to that is, difficult.
The site got hacked a few months back and that’s one of the major reasons for changing it. We can’t alter some of it or, it is very difficult to do so.
Thing is, if I press the go button before the new site is even 80{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} ready for prime time, we get slagged off for it not doing this or that. If it’s 90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} there we’ll still get a beating on what isn’t right and as you get more happy with it the lower the slagging level is.
The joys of being under so much scrutiny. :rolls:
Most of it is done but there’s a couple of little niggles that, sadly as I am away from home this weekend on business, I can’t fix or it would probably have gone over to the new platform today. Then I’d have spent ages explaining why “stuff” wasn’t the way whoever looking expects it to be.
And that applies as much, if not more, to trade. 😉
K.
kwatt wrote:
The joys of being under so much scrutiny. :rolls:I was only trying to help you avoid further confusion with your buyers. :rolls:
ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty claims?
The announcement on the ISE site is not dated so I am not sure when they ceased trading as stated below:
ISE News
It is with great sadness that ISE has sadly been forced to cease trading due to a number of factors.
We hope that the ISE business will find new owners in 2015 and continue under new ownership but presently we are afraid that circumstances have forced us into a position from which there is no alternative but to take the actions that have been taken.
In the interim period there are no staff in the ISE business to process any requests for any purpose
This thread here post296084.html?hilit=ise{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}20warranty#p296084 talked about the ring fenced trust monies. Hopefully there will be a statment soon about who to contact as the comment “there are no staff in the ISE business to process any requests for any purpose” is not encouraging…
ps Hope all the people inolved are ok.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
The situation is, presently, that until a new owner is found if that is possible then there is no support in place.
I can confirm that ISE has no employees presently, hence the “no support”. Staff were made redundant officially on the 5th November.
There are a variety of reasons for this position that are sadly unavoidable but that will hopefully be resolved in time. However, I cannot offer any assurance of that as I do not have the information to do so.
Sad but that is the position as things stand right now it would appear.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
So the Trust Fund for warranty repairs in the event of this happening was just a lie/wishful thinking to keep sales going? Well I hope the directors have run off Directors & Officers Liability insurance in place in that case.
I am really sorry for the employees but a previous statement on the other thread by you stated “As the parent company, UK Whitegoods Limited would become the scheme administrator automatically and assume all responsibility”. Hopefully at best all is academic if my machine keeps going or at worst parts are at least available.
Sean.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
No, it was with the best intention and had it not been for that funding in place service requirements for some time would not have been met.
However the practicality of the situation largely nobody could have foreseen I don’t think. I certainly didn’t nor is/was the situation either intentional or one of ISE’s making.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
When I bought my ISE10 (1406W) back in Jan 2008, Dave Quinn told me that :
“The warranty for your machine is backed by AXA and the details of your warranty have been forwarded to them. In the event of ISE Limited failing the insurance company would contact you with alternative contact details for any parts or service work that you may require.”
However, I’ve never seen a policy number or anything so I’ve no idea how likely it is to get any joy out of AXA. Our machine sprang an (internal) leak last night, so I’ve only just found out that ISE has been dissolved when trying to arrange a repair. The independent who supplied the machine, Honeywood UK Ltd, ceased trading in August 2013.
Anyone got any advice? It seems like a no-brainer that a machine sold with an insurance-backed warranty should retain that if the manufacturer/retailer goes under, but I realise that real life is not as simple as we might like to imagine.
TIA,
Jon.Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
Hi Jon,
AXA dropped the warranties on appliances business completely as I understand it and policies changed hands a few years ago. So, you won’t get anywhere there at all.
The problem, as you rightly point out is that it isn’t so simple. The reality is that someone has to take the call, find an engineer, deal with processing all that stuff, processing all parts orders, send out parts and so on and there’s nobody there to do all that.
So whilst there may well be a policy in force, it turns out to be of little use if you cannot access all the infrastructure required that allows it to be used and, given the very low margins (zero for ISE) there’s not exactly a queue of willing parties that want to know about taking that on.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
…but presumably someone bought the AXA policies and, hence, the liabilities. So if I could find out these details there should be a (albeit small) possibility of getting the new insurer to cough for a repair. How might anyone find out who owns these liabilities? There’s not much point paying an insurance premium if the insurer can’t even be contacted in the event of a claim.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
What went on in the background I’ve no clue other than I know it all got shifted about and everything was changed at some stage, around 2010 or so I think.
A number of people have tried and failed as the insurer would not engage with individuals. 🙁
To be honest I don’t know how that all worked but I believe it went to a company called UK General or something, beyond that I really have no clue or any idea of how a claim is processed, where or how as I have never been involved in that side of things.
The people that did all that are no longer there.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
kwatt wrote:To be honest I don’t know how that all worked but I believe it went to a company called UK General or something,
These guys I believe…..
Re: ISE Appliances cease trading-who deals with warranty cla
When in July 2014 Mr Watt suddenly cancelled the 10-year warranty on my W288 eco (bought new in Nov 2012 from a Glasgow retailer) on the grounds that this carefully selected dealer hadn’t passed on to him my payment, I queried the warranty cover with the fund provider named on the iseappliances website. I cited the relevant website paragraph:
‘Our provision funds are lodged with Sterling Assurance who are a trading name of Zurich Assurance (company number 02395416) and is fully regulated and authorised by the FSA. Our fund is account number W523411 and the money for the provision of the 10 year guarantee on all ISE applicances purchased since launch is held in that fund’.
On 6th August 2014 Sterling replied:
Sterling Assurance and Sterling ISA Managers have no knowledge of, or involvement in, the provision of any warranties whether relating to domestic appliances or otherwise. We are not an ‘insurance’ company, we are an ‘assurance’ company – the difference being that we offer an element of life cover with some of our investments, and we do not offer cover for material items. . . .I can completely understand that as our company name has been made available on the ISE Appliances website linked to their warranty, you may feel this infers we have a responsibility in this respect. However until you made us aware of the information ISE Appliances have placed in the public domain on their website, we were completely unaware of the situation.
— So, from my reading of this reply it would appear that there never was a repair warranty covered by Sterling.
My machine required (another) repair shorty after summary removal by Mr Watt of the warranty. Since the repairers he previously sent out were wholly unfamiliar with the W288 eco machine and/or failed to take time to diagnose the cause of the problem (imbalance during spin) it occurs to me that other former purchasers may now similarly be on their own. Since the machine is basically a more-or-less customised high-end Asko brand, I can only suggest that owners might try, as I eventually did, Youtube for repair advice re Asko washing machines. I was able myself to replace the four-strut shock-absorber assembly using common sense and reassurance from a Youtube ‘Asko’ video. — Not ideal practice, of course, but what else to do?. Throw the machine away? Sell it for maybe £20(no warranty, unfamiliar brand)? . . . There seems, however, to be no ready means of identifying how to reset or repair the ‘unbalance sensor’ itself, which failed long ago. So keep an eye on the machine during spin cycles, or it may attempt to self-distruct.
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