Home contents claim (shed fire)

giantben

Hi everyone, im looking for some tips on how best to handle a contents insurance claim.

Last Thursday my brick shed went up, (fire brigade confirmed electrical fault) it had been burning from some time before i saw smoke and contacted the fire brigade. They arrived within 5 minutes and put the fire out.

The aftermath really surprised me, the amount of stuff i had in there either thats now completely destroyed or gone altogether. We have put in the claim to LTSB they sent out Rainbow to clear up the mess and make a list of what was still recognisable, but as the roof was asbestos they had to leave, LTSB have arranged for cunningham and lindsey to take charge of the claim because of the value of the goods that were in there which include....

Just under £6k in fishing gear (which is mine and my brothers)
Just over £3k of mountain bikes/mountain bike gear (two bikes, and all of my downhill biking gear)
£2k of petrol pressure washer, tools and powertools, and garden equipment
£1500 of car cleaning bits, roof rack, helmet, car oil and service bits for all our cars, plus some other car bits.

In total the claim for contents is £12.5k, we are expecting cunningham and lindsey to come out next week to look at everything and start to look over our list of what was in there.

My major concerns at the moment are the amount of time it will take to get the replacement goods/cheque sorted i have a fishing trip to france booked for the first week of June but no gear at all to go with, and i also have a mountain bike event in mid june in Wales with no bike or gear to go with!

I have photos or can prove most of what i had, mainly the bike/fishing gear etc.

I mean in terms of what was in there and what i can replace it with etc. having already sorted out some great deals im happy to accept a small amount less than the total value of it all.

But now the questions.....

But should i tell them that to start off with in an effort to speed the claim up?
Once we have come to an agreed payout should i just start to deal with LTSB to get it sorted quicker?
Are cunningham and lindsey that much of a pain to deal with?
Have any of you got any tips of how best to go foward? The rebuilding of the shed im not to bothered about for now as i have other places i can store everything.

Cheers and thank in advance
Ben

dacouch

You need to bear in mind that the vast majority of policies have a limit of cover for contents in out buildings of typically between £1000 and £5000.

Who are you insured with and I'll look up how much cover you have.

Bear in mind that it is likely your brothers contents is not covered by your policy

giantben

dacouch wrote: »

You need to bear in mind that the vast majority of policies have a limit of cover for contents in out buildings of typically between £1000 and £5000.

Who are you insured with and I'll look up how much cover you have.

Bear in mind that it is likely your brothers contents is not covered by your policy

Lloyds TSB, there doesnt seem to be an upper claim limit as far as im aware.

dacouch

I assume you have the LTSB "Personal Home Plan Policy", they do however offer policies from other Insurers so if you have a different policy with them the following will not apply

The Personal Home Plan Policy seems to cover contents of outbuildings eg your shed only if you have opted for the optional "Garden Cover". http://www.insurance.lloydstsb.com/personal/homeplan/gardencover.asp It states in the relevant part of the policy (Which I have copied and pasted at the bottom of this post) that if you have this cover it is shown on your policy schedule and the amount covered.

If you do not have cover for the contents of your shed on your policy there is a chance you may be able to claim for part of it under their "Away from Home Cover" if you have opted for this cover


Your policy schedule shows if you are covered under this section of the policy.
Please see Conditions and Exceptions applying to the whole of the policy on
pages 44– 45.

What is covered

Loss or damage to contents in a garage,
outbuilding, shed or greenhouse associated with
your home, by fire, explosion, malicious damage or
vandalism, storm, flood, theft, attempted theft,
subsidence, heave or landslip, impact or water
leaking from any fixed water installation or oil from
any fixed heating installation.#

What is not covered

• The excess shown in your policy schedule.
• Theft not involving forcible and violent entry to, or
exit from, your home, if you have lent, let or
sublet any part of your home, or whilst persons
other than your family are staying there.
• Official confiscation or detention.
• Loss or damage occurring when your home is
unfurnished or unoccupied, unless you have
selected ‘home unoccupied extension’ under
Section 5.
• Loss by deception, unless the only deception is
gaining entry to your home.
• Loss or damage caused by you or your family.

giantben

Thanks guys, its my mums policy and we have had it for 15 years and this is the first claim. LTSB have accepted the claim, and due to the amount of money they then decided to get a loss adjuster onto the case.
As far as we are aware the shed cover is the same cover as the contents in the house, we made them aware of what was in there initially when the claim was accepted.

So to speed things up in terms of getting the pay out i can get the adjuster to agree to an amount then go back to LTSB to get the pay out instead of waiting for the adjuster to do it and maybe string it out.

The thing i am concerned about time wise is if they ask for receipts, i got a lot of my bike and fishing gear when i sold one of my old BMW's so did a lot of it with cash, but i have plenty of pictures of me using the bike and loads of me fishing with pretty much all of it in shots.

The rest of the stuff is things you would get from B&Q so if they really wanted to i could look at old bank statements, but i tend to buy a lot of things with cash dont know why just easier, plus for the last few years being self employed i always have it in my pocket.

What are the chances of being able to get a pay out or replacement on the goods in the next 4 weeks?

giantben

ban-ki-moon wrote: »

Not a cat in hells chance, I'll show my backside in Binns window if you receive a settlement in four weeks. Ensure you are there when the Loss Adjuster comes, don't know how old your mum is but they intimidate older people. They do have fishing tackle suppliers and bike suppliers, don't let them palm you off with crap (they'll probably offer you vouchers for poundland)!!

She's only 45, im 25 but i always do as much research as i can to give her a good picture of the way this will work.
And i will try and push them all the way, ill just get her to allow them to deal with me too.

With a £12.5k claim what amount would you expect them to try and offer?

What tips are there to speed the whole process up, im assuming that they are going to be a pain the !!!! all the way to deal with here!

geri1965_2

ban-ki-moon wrote: »

don't know how old your mum is but they intimidate older people.

Deliberately?

pedro123456

ban-ki-moon

the title is yours ............you are funny .........I haven't laughed so much in ages...

Ta Pete...........ps geoffrey has 2 f's not 1.

oh and can I join your club ...........looks good to me :-)

Ban-Ki Moon- On a mission to clean up the corrupt insurance industry, one claim at a time!!:beer:

giantben

A quick update to whats happened so far....

8 weeks after the fire the asbestos and remains of the shed and items inside have been removed, so as i understand it we now have to wait for C&L to agree to the costs of what was in there.
I dont have any reciepts for what i had, most of the ones i still had were in a draw in the shed but I have photographic proof of pretty much everything that was in there, plus what has already been marked down as still being regognisable, so i do not believe there is any chance of them being able to worm there way out of paying to replace the goods.

My reason for posting again other than to let everyone know how useless C&L are and also Aspect (Asbestos removal company) is that we were asked to get two quotes for rebuilding the shed (made of brick), they have both come out at between £2700 and £2850 as the whole back wall must be rebuilt. I thought it was a lot as when the guy from C&L came out he said it should be £700-£1k, but the cost of materials alone is £1700 plus the labour.

What i would like to know is if C&L will come and check the work afterwards or just ask if we are happy with it, as both builders have said they can sort out the brick wall and build a very large summerhouse for the same price, this would look much better and obviously be much more useful to us than another small brick shed. Is another option to speak to C&L and explain what is on the table from the builders and get them to agree to it?

Any advice would be great

Also as they seem to be extremly slow to deal with insurance claims, does anyone know what kind of time frame i could expect now everything is cleared to getting paid out/items replaced, ive already missed a fishing trip to france that cost me £300, and meant to be going to wales in July for a week's mountain biking.

Cheers
Ben

dacouch

Ben your are entitled to have a small summer house built BUT the Insurance company are entitled to only pay out for the building what they would have paid out had you replaced it with another similar shed.

There is a chance the Loss Adjuster may come out to inspect the work and if you have been submmiting invoices that state they are rebuilding a shed the Insurers could throw out your entire claim due to fraud / exageratting your claim. Your best bet would be honest with the LA and explain what you are doing, he will want to have estimates to replace the shed with a like for like shed so he knows what they would have paid out. he will also want to see quotes for putting up the summerhouse so he can see the cost. He will not allow you to pocket any difference or have other work carried out at the same time.

Have the LA advised you they are replacing all of the contents or are they restricting it to a certain amount

giantben

dacouch wrote: »

Ben your are entitled to have a small summer house built BUT the Insurance company are entitled to only pay out for the building what they would have paid out had you replaced it with another similar shed.

There is a chance the Loss Adjuster may come out to inspect the work and if you have been submmiting invoices that state they are rebuilding a shed the Insurers could throw out your entire claim due to fraud / exageratting your claim. Your best bet would be honest with the LA and explain what you are doing, he will want to have estimates to replace the shed with a like for like shed so he knows what they would have paid out. he will also want to see quotes for putting up the summerhouse so he can see the cost. He will not allow you to pocket any difference or have other work carried out at the same time.

Have the LA advised you they are replacing all of the contents or are they restricting it to a certain amount

Thats great, i thought it would be the best way to proceed, ive been quoted the same to build a new shed as to build a 3x8 metre summerhouse, then ill pay to have it plastered and wired up, so the cost and end result for the LA is exactly the same, plus it will look a lot nicer than a brick shed and more useful too.

Lloyds TSB agreed the claim two months ago before putting C&L in charge of it all, and they have also had an inventory of all that was in there since they took the case on, they wanted to see what was still recognisable in the shed before progressing to the next stage, which has finally happened, my mum has been dealing with C&L with it being her policy. When the guy came out 6 weeks ago to look at it he said he was expecting us to have it cleared up and paid out by the end of May, so i feel that any time they quote to basically double.

We have remains of a few power tools and both bikes bikes and a few fishing reels, but all the other fishing gear and and remains of other items in there were cleared up by the asbestos guys they took 30 large bags of waste from what was a packed 2x3m shed, so there can be no question of the amount of stuff we had in there.

Ive already got deposits on some of the replacement goods as ive managed to sort out some cracking deals, so most of the higher cost items are standing by to be paid for and collected