Help with Natwest Home insurance claim

shleic

Hi,

Looking for some advice regarding how much 'help' I should expect from Natwest with my insurance claim.

Scenario - leaking bathroom pipe has caused some of the kitchen ceiling (below bathroom) to fall down. A plumber's been in and fixed the leak. Natwest insurance will cover repairs to the ceiling under accidental damage. However, the assessor (who is with UK assistance) has told me that it's a 'desktop claim' and so they won't be coming out to look at the damage. Also I need to get two quotes from builders for potential repairs myself, send it to the assessor and they will decide whether to go ahead or not. If they go ahead they'll pay me (less excess) to pay the contractor.

Now when we had a similar situation with a leaking roof approx. 5 years ago all I had to do was make 1 phone call - Natwest sent an adjustor around and he dealt with everything (assigning the contractors to fix the celing and redecorate and signing off the final works).

So am I being an old fogey to still expect the insurance company to deal with most things, rather than leave most of it up to me?

Anyone had any similar experiences - is it worth complaining and insisting that I want them to sort out all the repairs?

Any help / comments gratefully received.

SH

dacouch

Most people would prefer to be in your position as they prefer to use local builders who they know and trust. Often the contractors an Insurer uses are either incompentent or cut corners (Or both).

Its a fairly easy job to have fixed and generally costs between £300 and £1000 depending if they just repair the damaged area or need to replaster / reartex the who ceiling. (If you have a patterned artex ceiling it is virtually imposible to match the patterns so a local builder will often quote to do the whole ceiling

JS101

in my experience it is most important to reduce the problems after an incident by having had an adequate contingency plan in place prior to accident. i know that insurers will cover all damage to carpets and electrical appliances if they have already been covered with plastic sheeting prior to accident. this maybe why they have not taken the A.D claim seriously.

the insurer should take responsibility for a claim and id expect them to send a loss adjuster. a complaint is never wasted though, always worth it.

in the future secure your items, especially electrical appliances, which would avoid the confusion.

dacouch

JS101 wrote: »

in my experience it is most important to reduce the problems after an incident by having had an adequate contingency plan in place prior to accident. i know that insurers will cover all damage to carpets and electrical appliances if they have already been covered with plastic sheeting prior to accident. this maybe why they have not taken the A.D claim seriously.

the insurer should take responsibility for a claim and id expect them to send a loss adjuster. a complaint is never wasted though, always worth it.

in the future secure your items, especially electrical appliances, which would avoid the confusion.

This does not make sense, there is no requirement under a Home Insurance policy to cover your contents in plastic prior to an accident / incident. They would expect you to take reasonable steps after an incident to try and minimise further damage. However it is not alway possible to move items of furniture out of the way of the leak etc

The reason the Insurers are not sending a Loss Adjuster is a financial one, they expect the claim to be under their cut off for sending a loss adjuster. Insurers typically send a Loss Adjuster when a claim is expecte to be over a certain amount. This can vary from Insurer to Insurer, can be influenced by the type of claim and can be affected by the amount of claims they have in eg at the moment they may have lots of flood claims in certain parts of the country due to the recent rain.

They will often not send a Loss Adjuster out for claims under say £700 to £1000 again depending on the above.

If they send a Loss Adjuster out it will cost the Insurer between £50 and £200 for a basic claim so they often decide to handle the claim over the phone. They often have software or an inhouse specialist that can check whether a quote is within the expect parameters.

shleic

dacouch - I guess it's better to get in people you know & trust, the only problem is that I haven't had any experience of getting builders in before. Guess I'll have to ask around at work.

In terms of the cost it's an old lath and plaster ceiling which I believe are a pain to repair & so it might be easier to board over the whole ceiling and skim it.

JS101 - The only damage is to the kitchen ceiling which the insurance has agreed to cover under accidental damage caused by water leakage.

Cheers

SH

dacouch

Have a word with a few friends or colleagues for recommendations, the local tradesmen will appreciate the work at the moment.

When an Insurer sends a tradesman they are often from out of the area and then subcontract the work out to the cheapest tradesman so they can make as much money as possible. Its not unusual for people (There are plenty on MSE) who have had problems with an Insurers tradesmen and then really struggle to get the work corrected.

Fixing a ceiling is actually fairly easy to do for a competent tradesman and is fairly lucrative for them so it should be easy to find some. Like I said before, if you have a patterned artex ceiling it is impossible to match the patterns so unless they reartex or skim the plaster it will always be slightly noticeable.