What happened to the silver lining

' Question to the masses: is anyone out there totally satisfied with the way their insurance company treats them?

Insurance ought to be the silver lining to every black cloud. After all, that's what all those garish in-your-face insurance adverts want hapless consumers to believe.

So why is it that virtually everyone seems to have tales to tell about how awful the insurance industry is at dealing with customers and settling claims?

You disagree? Well, sit down for a moment and list all the dealings you have ever had in a personal, rather than professional, capacity with general insurance companies. How many times has it been a straightforward experience with helpful staff, prompt payment of claims and swift administration?

And how many times has it not?

I wish I was different, but writing about insurance for a living doesn't excuse you from the perils of the industry.

I recently did the sitting down and listing thing and the only fond memory I could recall was receiving a cheque after my car was stolen.

Shame that I had to somehow get around without transport during the five months the money took to arrive. And that's my best experience as an insurance customer.

My worst? That was probably the claim for a flooded kitchen that led to me receiving a letter denying liability and giving such a spurious view of events that I wrote back querying whether the underwriter had mixed up my case with someone else's. Strangely, they then paid up immediately - although maybe it was because I included my business card.

Then there are all those trifling matters that are irritating precisely because you've bought cover and should be entitled to relief when something happens. Like when I lost my wedding ring in the sea and was told I needed to supply the original receipt - from 1994.

Or when one of a pair of landing windows in my house was broken. Both windows had to be replaced because the glass was obsolete and the glazier had nothing even slightly similar. You guessed it - the underwriter refused to pay for both. Was I supposed to have another accident and break the other one?

What else? Just the usual hassle. A lost jacket in Portugal (this time a tattered photo of my wife wearing it eventually did the trick).

And, most recently, a classic car policy renewal that eventually elicited the response from my broker that the forms and photos I had submitted 12 months earlier had never been received. And no-one had thought to let me know!

Eventually, I was offered a £20 discount on my latest cover - after I had already paid the premium and been read all the guff about not getting back the broker's fee if I cancelled after signing up.

Luckily for me none of these events were cataclysmic. But that doesn't excuse the industry from such shoddy performance on dealing with claims that aren't issues of life and death but still matter. Insurers are meant to prevent dramas turning into crises. And that is not happening. IT

' Andrew Cave is the former associate city editor of the Daily Telegraph