Home Insurance Claim

JasperMac

Anyone for advice out there?

I have never claimed on my home insurance before but we had a leak from our immersion heater, which was undetected for a few days. I tried to fix the problem on a temporary basis, unfortunately, the leak turned into a torrent.

The damage has been pretty extensive!!! The carpets and laminated flooring are ruined, there is damage to the TV due to parts of the ceiling caving in under the weight of the water. It has even knocked out the lighting to all of the downstairs. In a word, its a DISASTER!

What is the precedure when dealing with insurance companies for these horrific events. I have a builder coming round this evening to assess the damage but I haven't contacted the Insurance Company (Zurich) at this point. Waiting for some helpful advice before I begin this process.

Please Help....

JasperMac (Moneysavingexpert virgin)

Dave_T_UK

You might find that you don't have a valid claim, if the tank developed a leak through wear & tear, old age etc.
You will find somewhere in your policy that it is up to you to "Keep the property in a good state of repair."
If you had accidently hit the tank and damaged it, you could possibly claim under accidental damage, but again if the tank was seen as being old and needed changing, you could again have problems.
Dave T

JasperMac

The tank is only 5 years old and still in good shape but the immersion heater in the top of the tank needed replacing. I turned off the water supply to the tank but obviously not enough. The torrent began when I took out the immersion heater element.

mattymoo

The escape of water should be covered but not the repairs to the tank / immersion heater. Give your insurers a call - sounds like it could be a costly repair.

dacouch

The claim for the damage when you took the immersion heater off should be covered if you have Accidental Damage Cover although even if you do not have this they may still pay the claim.

The Insurers will not pay for the repairs to the tank / immersion heater just the subsequent damage the water has done.

I would suggest you ask your Builder to do a quote and in the mean time ring your Insurers to report the claim. The Insurers may recommend their own builder but sometimes these are not very good and during times of bad weather when thye get a lot of claims eg now you can wait a long time for their builders to do the work. If you have your own quote they will happily use your builder if his price is the same or lower than theirs.

They will probably want to appoint a loss adjuster to handler the claim and you should not do any work without their authority. If you have any emergency work (Stuff that needs to be done to prevent further damage) then ring and advise the Insurers before you spend the money).

Zurich are a good Insurer so you should find it goes through easily

I hope this helps