Home contents claim - water on electrical items

Extemporaneous

I would welcome advice on this from anyone with similar experience,or knowledge of the correct thing to do.

Like so many others, I had frozen pipes that burst in December. The burst was in an outbuilding where I store garden equipment and tools. I had emergency cover in my policy, and expected my insurer to send an emergency plumber to repair the burst. But they did not. I was unable to get the stopcock on the burst pipe to shut off completely. It was four days before the water was turned off and things could start to dry out.

When reporting the claim, I was asked what contents were affected by the water and I told them about the tools/equipment that had been stood in up to 2 inches of water.

I have only just (!) had a visit from the loss adjuster for the contents part of the claim. The electrical equipment has dried out, but is water marked and rusted and I have not dared to plug any of them into a socket.

The loss adjuster did a PAT test using hand-held equipment, and then plugged each appliance in - they worked. He subsequently said I would not be able to claim for any of this equipment, as it had "passed the test".

Is this correct? I am still extremely dubious about using electrical equipment that has been stood in water for several days.

vaio

When we do PAT testing we record the results, write and tell them you are concerned about the safety aspects of using equipment that has been water damaged, ask them for the insulation resistance and earth leakage results and find out how they propose to deal with the external & (almost certain) internal corrosion.

Extemporaneous

Thank you very much vaio - I have no idea what most of that means, apart from 'internal corrosion', but it is very likely describing what I am worrying about!

Would you recommend that I not use the equipment (it's a drill, a sander, a strimmer, a lawnmower) until I get an answer?