Is Annual Service Required for Insurance?

I was more than a little put out by this as I had paid for a "Super Policy" and was aware that I had to have my van serviced annually to comply but I had not seen the requirement to provide a full service history in the event of a claim. 

I therefore emailed the following to the CC. 

 "I have just become aware of the insidious clause within my caravan insurance documents that I take exception to.
I took out your Super Cover policy primarily because I wanted New for Old cover. Following a resent conversation on the Club's forum I find out that this aspect of my policy is worthless because as the new owner of a second-hand 2010 van I cannot prove that I have had the van serviced on an annual basis.
Since this very important aspect was not highlighted at the offer stage and if correct I consider your advertising to be very duplicitous indeed.
Please confirm that it was indeed your intention to mislead me into buying an expensive policy that I will be unable to take full advantage of in the event of an incident that leaves me with a caravan that cannot be repaired."

Today I received a reply:

"Thank you for your feedback. It is certainly not The Clubs intention to mislead members in any way, ever. We have some significant challenges with our large and complex caravan insurance product in that there are lots of terms, and different ones will be important to different members, and at different times, so without the sales process being extremely onerous pointing out every single term we don’t always know which particular one is the important one to you!

That said I’m sure there is more that could be done on our online sales process (which is how you bought your policy) to capture this particular point. The amended website has been live for a couple of months now and we will shortly be given opportunities for improvements to our web sales process.

As such please can you reply and give your suggestions into where and how this can be highlighted to applicants during the web journey which would make it clearer. Please feel free to include screen shots if they assist.

You input would be greatly appreciated."

Make of that what you will, I still consider that I have been mislead. 

Their last paragraph IMHO just  passes the buck over to you. The point of not being able to comment on each & every clause is also another get out, while I agree with the general sentiment, something as important as mandatory servicing should have been pointed out to you. 

Basically the replacement as new requires the caravan to be serviced annually by a competent person. The policy does not define this so what that is might be open to argument. In a dispute however any ambiguity would favour the customer but if you do not have a registered engineer doing it I would get in writing that they will accept your alternative. If you do it make sure you have the knowledge and keep the receipts for any parts used.

On second hand caravans I would say that if you do not have receipts for previous services but assuming the dealer had done it prior to the sale confirm that it has been serviced and get them to confirm the position. When I took this cover through the club though what I was told was that it had to have been serviced within the last twelve months not every year of its life.

I no longer have a policy with the club so cannot be sure of the current wording.

I was told was that it had to have been serviced within the last twelve months not every year of its life.

That seems more reasonable and what I would have expected. It should, however, be clarified by CC

The policy clearly states that one has to be able to proved that it has been serviced in each of the five proceeding years if a claim is to be accepted under the new for old valuation.