Astrenska Insurance Limited · DRN-5935869

The complaint Mr A has complained that Astrenska Insurance Limited trading as Collinson Insurance unreasonably refused to accept and pay his claim under his mobile phone policy when he lost his phone. Astrenska is the insurance underwriter for Mr A’s policy and is the entity who makes the ultimate decision on claims. References to Astrenska in this decision therefore include all its agents, like policy and claims administrators. What happened Mr A said his partner gave him this phone as a present and he was new to this manufacturer of mobile phones so he wasn’t that familiar with how it operated. He insured his phone with Astrenska. Mr A then lost his phone when he was out for the day around 10 months later. So he made a claim to Astrenska. In investigating his claim, Astrenska said it could see his ‘find my iPhone’ or FMI was activated when he bought his policy on 13 January 2024. But Mr A didn’t have the security features activated on his phone when he lost it, in other words he had switched it off. Astrenska explained the policy requires these security features were switched on before the loss, before Astrenska can consider any claim. This is because the policy requires that the policyholder will take reasonable precautions to protect their phone, one of which is ensuring the manufacturer security features are activated. And after Mr A raised his complaint, Astrenska could see the FMI was then switched on again. Mr A said he had reset his phone about a week or so before the loss or theft and he didn’t reactivate this FMI. So on that basis Astrenska refused to consider Mr A’s claim. Mr A complained but as Astrenska wouldn’t change its stance he then brought his complaint to us. The investigator was of the view Astrenska hadn’t done anything wrong given the policy terms required Mr A to have these security features activated on his phone before it was lost or stolen. Mr A didn’t agree so his complaint has been passed to me to decide. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Having done so, I’m not upholding this complaint. I do understand and appreciate Mr A will be very disappointed so I’ll now explain why.

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Insurers are entitled to decide what risks they want to cover and what risks they don’t want to cover. This is part of their commercial discretion permitted by the regulations under which they operate. So, in writing this insurance policy, Astrenska decided (along with virtually every other mobile phone insurer) that in order to make a successful claim, one of the things any policyholder needed to show was that they had switched on the security features of their phone, namely the FMI. The policy therefore says the following which shows this requirement: ‘Loss means that you are unable to account for your gadget(s) whereabouts and are permanently deprived of its use after reasonable precautions have been taken to protect it and it has not been left unattended. … What is not covered We will not pay for… any claim where all reasonable precautions have not been taken.’ Further policy definitions include: ‘Reasonable precautions shall mean all measures that would be deemed appropriate to expect a person to take in the circumstances to prevent loss, accidental damage or theft of your gadget(s), for example: having your gadget(s) in a suitable case, ensuring all standard security measures including PIN and Passwords are utilised and are set to a number other than default or sequential / multiple characters…’ This is clearly set out in the policy documents and was available for Mr A to read from the time he bought his policy. Therefore it isn’t a type of internal policy as Mr A thought it was. It was always there for him to read. Mobile phone insurers have access to each manufacturer’s system which can show whether these security features are indeed switched on. This is why Astrenska could see that Mr A hadn’t switched on the security feature FMI on his phone at the time he lost it. On this basis therefore Astrenska didn’t do anything wrong in not accepting Mr A’s claim as this security needed to have been switched on before he lost his phone in order for his claim to be considered. Further during Astrenska’s discussion over this with Mr A, it then discovered the FMI had been switched on again on Mr A’s phone. The FMI is an important security feature of the type of phone Mr A had. An equivalent feature is now on virtually every type of smart phone too. It helps to find the phone if it is lost or stolen and even more importantly it helps to protect the phone owner’s data too. So there is nothing fundamentally wrong in Astrenska (or indeed any other mobile phone insurer) insisting that this feature was switched on at the date of the loss of the phone. Virtually all other mobile phone insurers insist on the same thing too. So it’s not unusual or specific just to Astrenska. Instead it is standard industry practice across all mobile phone insurers. So even though Mr A might have an issue that such tracking facilities on mobile phones might invade his privacy, if he wants to insure his mobile phone then this policy and virtually every other policy will demand these sorts of security features are switched on and activated. There is also no question that Astrenska changed anything after Mr A made his claim, as these policy conditions were available to Mr A before he bought his phone insurance.

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So unless Mr A adheres to the policy conditions requiring this, which Astrenska clearly detailed in its policy, which Mr A didn’t do sadly as it wasn’t switched on and activated, then Astrenska did nothing wrong in refusing his claim. My final decision So, for these reasons, it’s my final decision that I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr A to accept or reject my decision before 24 April 2026. Rona Doyle Ombudsman

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