In order to avoid the risk of invalidating their home insurance policies, homeowners are being warned by experts not to withhold information of prior convictions .
Under the terms of a home insurance policy, everybody who lives under the same roof must inform their insurers of any previous convictions they may have collected.
Chris Bath from Unlock, The National Association of Reformed Offenders, said: “On insurance websites in particular, people can often simply tick a box saying they accept assumptions made about them, including that they have no convictions, without really understanding what they are agreeing to. The courts don’t tell offenders that their conviction might affect insurance, so many people have no idea that not mentioning an offence matters.”
However, members of the insurance sector have defended the right to take prior convictions into account. Malcolm Tarling, of the Association of British Insurers, said that where non-disclosure is relevant to the risk, insurers are justified in declining or withdrawing insurance cover .