Help/ stress with home insurance claim

cam101

Hope this is the correct forum for this?

Our integrated cooker packed up in November, it's 5 years old (we've lived in the house for 2 years). We pursued a claim with home insurance, which went something like this:

November: Phoned up, told to arrange our own repair. If it cost more than the excess (£100), insurance would pay the additional cost. Told to get a receipt, then contact them again once repair done.

Early December: We arrange our own repair, part ordered and fitted. However once the new part is fitted, local repair company identify a much larger fault than originally thought. They tell us they could fix this fault but it was likely to only last a few months and they think we would be better off with a new cooker.

Mid December: Phone insurers again, to be told they would need to send their own engineer out instead. We obtain a receipt from local repairers, as instructed and tell them "thanks but we can't use you any more".

22nd December: Phone insurers AGAIN to ask when we would hear (after being promised a call within 48 hours which never came). They tell us it's now too late until 28th December. We still have nothing to cook on, despite them knowing this since 14th December they have taken no action.

28th December: Insurers pass us on to a third party company called SBS who tell us an engineer will call within 48 hours. Great, at least we might get to speak to an engineer to arrange a call out in very early January.

End of December: No phone call, we chase insurers approx 6 times, no engineer or reason.

2nd January: Phone SBS again, to be told they are emergency out of hours only and that nothing can be done until Monday.

4th January: duly call back on Monday, told engineers don't start back until Wednesday so nothing can be done (surely they must have known this before).

5th January: receive a call from Whirlpool (not even who we were expecting), to arrange a visit. Told they can come Thursday onwards, any time between 9-4pm. They don't work weekends and can't specify a time. I tell them we are teachers who start back Thursday and cannot be there at those times. They tell me it's tough that's all they will offer and to phone back my insurers.

5th January: Phone back insurers, they promise to phone engineers then call me back in half an hour. That was almost 2 hours ago...

This visit is only to identify whether they will write off the cooker for a replacement or attempt another repair (despite us being advised against repair).

Oh my goodness I'm so stressed over this, we couldn't cook Christmas dinner, keep being fobbed off and passed from pillar to post. Do they not consider a cooker to be a home emergency? We have a microwave and that's it. I'm so stressed i've cried after each phone call this week, and that's really not like me. We just want an end to this but we're not getting anywhere and no one cares!!

:mad::(

vicshippers

You could try posting it in the insurance forum here for a better response

cam101

Thanks, I must have missed that forum when I scrolled down