House Fire? loss adjusters a year later and still homeless need urgent advice

mastini

Our bungalow burnt to the ground in sept 2009 over a year later we still have no progress our insurance company asigned us a loss adjuster, what a joke in the passed year we've spoke to him 3 times
he has without our knowledge been promoted and our claim has been passed over.
Does anyone no how long it takes usually from start to finish of a claim for a re-build?, what are our entilelments for housing? as we are homeless.
We are very stressed with not knowing anything we are being passed from one person to another and still not getting anywere all the building plans have been passed and still no progress.
you still have to pay morgage payments and insurance policies for what?
HAS ANYONE EXPERIENCED THIS AND SURVIVED???

Ian_W

Who is the insurer?

My guess at odds of 2/1 is Aviva!

You need to get seriously complaining to the insurer, the people they appoint to deal with your claim are their agents. Your contract is with insurer. 12 months is scandalous in the face of it.

PasturesNew

Do you have room to park a caravan on the site and get electrics/water hooked up?

mastini

Hi sorry with the delay in responce, thankyou for taking the time to respond, our loss adjusters are called merlin, i have seen them representing other disgruntled parties on here too, we did contact our insurance company and they informed us that it is out of their hands and that all of our folders had been passed over to our loss adjusters (merlin), if we were not happy with their performance then we should contact merlins own complaints department, as it would be them that would have to deal with it, talk about keeping things in house,
merlin have been very reluctant to keep us up dated at all, we have been fed some in house emails etc , usually a month or 2 down the line etc, the planning for our new build went through pretty quick, around 3 to 4 months, the tenders for the builders have only just gone through aprox 3 weeks ago , as far as we are aware one has to still be acepted etc, all we want to know from merlin is when they may expect or decide to re build as being homeless is very truamatic and it is making both my wife and i very ill, they dont even have the humain consideration to keep you up dated with regards to this, their very complacent and matter of a fact, we regret the day we certainly put our lives into their hands, one thing is for sure, if any one of you is unfortuante enougth to ever go through what we have, then seek leagle advice befor you seek a loss adjuster, learn what your rights are befor dealing with any insurance representatives, my wife and i have never had a claim in our lives, we were stood in our yard the day after 8 fire engines left, our insurance company sent merlin along, the spill that the merlin rep told us was obviously just to sucker you in, we are now totally in their hands and have not got a clue what to do, as mentioned this has made both my wife and i very ill via stress, we look at our beautiful home just ashes, along with all of our lifes belongings, we had a very small contents insurance, the worry of not knowing is not worth the stress or heart attacks that could become, my wifes blood pressure has been 174 over 110, she is now obviously on tablets to bring this down, all because a circle of un careing miscreants could not care a less, sorry to sound so bitter , but a little advice helps, but be warned, as this has been one of the most horrendas times we have ever had.....

McKneff

How come the tenders for the builders work has just gone through. Thats probably what has caused the delay.

How can yu expect the insurance company to do things if they havent got all the information or am I missing something her

mastini

Hi, the tenders did go through to the loss adjuster, supposedly working on the insurance companys behalf cause they certainly arn't looking out for ours, we had 4 builders put in their tenders, then one of the 4 was late so they gave them another month to 6 weeks to get things together to re submit, they were all very similar quotes, the point is, all of this was months ago, yet our loss adjusters are still dragging their heels, they seem to feel they have all the time in the world, your right untell they choose one and submit it to the insurance company we are left dangling from a string, the loss adjusters have come back with all the tenders are way too much, even though they are all independant the 2 most exspensive are merlins own acredited registered builders, so we are haveing to wait untell merlin and the insurance decide what is an apropriate amount, mean while a year and couple of months down the line we are still sat here twiddling our thumbs, what we would like to know, is how long dose this usually take, when are they likley to submit builders and start the foundations, we have had a year of great weather know we can exspect rain cold and frost, we have been in private acomodation, the rent has been paid and is now due up for re newel,
but we have been informed that the amount for our rental has now reached its maximum after 10 months, so we will have to pay our mortgage and our private rent, dose any one know what the norm is for rental ,what the insurance would usually pay up to, we should have been covered by our insurance , but obviously not...... these questions may sound a bit stupid or nieve, but we just dont have a clue.....

huckster

Suggest that you speak to the FOS about this situation. The policy you have will either limit the alternative accommodation to a % of the sums Insured or there will be a defined amount.

But as this is not your fault, with the Insurers and their appointed reps causing delays, I don't see why you should be paying out.


http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html

A complaint to the FOS could take ages, but if the FOS were willing to contact the Insurers on your behalf, you might start to see things moving.

McKneff

Good post from huckster there,
I am told that if the FOS gets involved they (the insurance co.) have to pay a £500 fee to pay, and serves 'em right

Its outrageous that they have delayed this for so long.

mastini

thanks very much for the link, here goes with another stupid responce,although we are not being kept up to date with regards to anything really and not even recieveing any positive feed back my wife and i are very worrid that by involving the FOS we may prolong this for even longer, its like a catch 22 sinario, will envolving the FOS make merlin drag their heels for any longer than they already have, i can see your points though and it would not harm to at least give them a call on the link that Huckster provided, sorry for sounding really thick, were not normaly a pair of morons, but when some thing like this happens your world completely falls apart, we were stupid enougth to fall for the spill that the merlin rep fed us, we thought that they would at the very least provide us with temperay acomodation untell the completed rebuild, they told us that we would not have to lift a finger that they would sort every thing to the smallest details, how stupid were we, at least from this sinario you can read and be warned, they have treated my wife and i like a pair of complete peasants, not worthy of comunication, last winter we spent in a caravan minus 10 with out heating or water, as the hose pipes r4unning from the tap froze completely, it took vertually 4 months to get into acomadation, we did get the rudimentary hotel for the first week whilst a form of acomodation was being sourced so that we could stay on our property, we would have been happy with a mobile home, but they said they could not get a mobile home or static caravan up our drive, hence we endded up with a touring caravan which froze and the walls were constantly damp with condensation, wetting your clothes and bedding etc, we have managed to drag a static caravan onto our grounds across the field beside us, some thing that they told us they could not do, the static caravan is an empty shell that we dragged on to house our family pets, but we are going to have to move into it our selves as our tenancey is up from the private rental and we have still not heard back from merlin.....sorry to bleet on, i hope by posting this at least one individuaL family is saved from the heart ache of being treated terribly by these people, befor i do sign off i would like you guys to also know that we had a very good insurance cover my wife has always made sure that we had the best insurance for over 10 years for our property (this never had good content insurance check your own ) from one of the top insurance companys , if not the top, we were insured via their own mortgage representative originally whom insured the property at what he thought it would be worth, the merlin rep laugthed when he saw it and informed us that it was grossly over insured, and that he could re build our property for less than a quater of this price, as mentioned he has had 4 independat builders quote for a rebuild, 2 of them are their own acredited builders whom are the 2 highest quotes, this loss adjuster has halved the lowest quote out of their own acredited builders quotes and passed this into the insurance company, this was actually 3 to 4 weeks ago, he informed us of this action when we phoned him, asking for any news, he was a complete complacent un caring !!!!, he told us 3 to 4 weeks ago that he would phone us back with regards to our further rent and let us know what the insurance company were going to decide, not a word from him...........any way be warned, and thanks to everyone whom has answerd our posts, having a gripe or moan dose help beleave me.........kind regards

Happychappy

Oh dear, this fills me with dread, I have a claim just started from a burst pipe and the insurers have just assigned Merlin as the loss adjusters

foggytown

Happychappy wrote: »

Oh dear, this fills me with dread, I have a claim just started from a burst pipe and the insurers have just assigned Merlin as the loss adjusters

Then now is the time to take some preventative action. Comb through your contract and determine if you actually agreed that your insurer can wash their hands of your claim by assigning it to a third party. (Assuming it IS a third party! Merlin may be a subsidiary of your insurer.) I find it hard to believe that you can't have any recourse against your insurer i.r.o. claims handling because (after all) THEY are the ones you have the contract with!

If it looks like your stuck with Merlin then you sit him down when he appears and tell him exactly what you expect in the way of service and time frames. Have him lay out what happens and when - step by step. In fact, record the conversation on your mobile (with his permission) for future reference. If he refuses, start wondering what he doesn't want to be on the record.

Remember, he's there as a representative of the company you paid all that premium to and who owes you a duty of care and service.