@lennyb 8 years in the biz and it’s pretty normal. Insurers have to be careful when it comes to stuff like this as it can create what’s called an estoppel, which is basically where they paint themselves into a corner by promising or stating some definitively that could later be used against you.
For me, working in sales and service, if someone calls and starts asking about something claims-related, if there’s been a claim I transfer them and claims begins the processing of applying the terms of their policy to adjust their claim. If they're asking hypotheticals, the claims department isn’t gonna take that call and to avoid an estoppel I really should limit my advice to “well your policy says X.” Insurers don’t like hypotheticals.
Winter tires are tricky cuz it probably doesn’t say anything in the policy itself around exact dates. It’s a discount, and the criteria for the discount varies from insurer to insurer and is really probably only present in an underwriting rule (so not public-facing.) I know when I ask someone about the winter tires, it’s basically “do you have a dedicated set of 4 that you switch on during the winter months?” Now does that meant Dec 21 to Mar 21? Or for the entirety of December and March as well? (Because those would be considered winter months, at least partially.) If we got an early winter and you had a claim in November as a result of weather conditions, but you were waiting to put your snows on, in part, because insurance didn’t require it, could they nail you for failure to mitigate damages or something? Probably not, but who’s to say? Same if you took them off early but then it snowed in April?
