Builders appointed by my insurance company have left my house in a mess.

50tony

My house caught fire last April and I contacted my insurance company. The insurance company classified my claim as commercial and appointed a loss adjusted. The loss adjuster appointed a surveyor (same company but under another name). The surveyor put my claim out to tender and two companies replied. One was a builder and the other was a maintenance company. I met with both and told my loss adjuster I did not want the maintenance company to do the work as they didn't appear to have sufficient knowledge of this scale of damage and looked started by the damage they saw. I informed my insurance company I did not want the maintenance company to do the work and they asked me what to do next!!! I then received a letter from the surveyor stating they had checked the company and found them to be reliable. They also stated my contract manager would meet weekly to oversee their work. After a delay of 3 months for the tender process the maintenance company were told they had the contract and I was told the cost. The surveyors had estimated the repair cost as £93,000 and the winner had come in at around £92,500. When I had the pre-work meeting the surveyor and contractor I was left with the opinion that this was the first big contract they had been awarded and if done correctly they would be allowed listing to a group listing contractors available for insurance work. In other words I was being used as "first blood". I thought at first this would be good as they would want to prove themselves.
They started work at the end of September, delayed because of health & safety paperwork hold-ups. When the work was finally H&S compliant the paperwork expired at the end of October.
They started work shortly after and I was the only person showing up for the agreed Monday morning meetings. The one employee working on site most of the time and I noticed they were not sticking to what the tender document said needed to be done. i.e. Hacking off plaster in the kitchen. I made a copy of the tender document and gave it to the employee who was surprised to see what needed doing. The company contacted the surveyor and even he didn't know what needed doing, which made me very wary. As it stands the contractor has not completed the work and left me with a few major problems. They paid no attention to the tender document and used the lowest quality materials wherever they could.
My surveyor has said the work will be put right by another company and payment will be made by deductions from the original contractors final bill. But that was at the end of December and I'm still waiting. he also commented with a smile that he had saved the insurance company a lot of money, which really annoyed me. It is just a game to him.
1. What can I do to speed things up? Talking to the surveyor doesn't do anything except to say he's working on it.
2. Should the contractors have completed work as stated in the tender document? There is a lot of it.
If so who is liable?

dogbot

You need to make a formal written complaint to your insurer directly. They essentialy are responsible at the end of the day. Send it recorded delivery and back it up with a phonecall the next day to run though exactly what you have explained.

Your home should be reinstated to the condition prior to the loss and that includes standard of materials (to a reasonable degree - if something can't be obtained any more or you are underinsured that would change the settlement). If you are happy that the schedule of works prepared, which was then tenedered for and won by this company, would adequatly acheive reinstatement then use it to push your case.

In your complaint remain calm and polite as you have done above. Try to break up your text though and use bullet points with the date of each significant step at the start to help guide the insurer thought your complaint.

Make an emotional appeal to the people you talk to at the insurer - how would they like it if they had been left for so long in this state etc.

Your complaint should focus on the lack of responsiveness of the surveyor and the company.

Be clear about what you expect to be done - a decent company putting everything right (list what needs to be done but state this isn't exhaustive, just the main points you can see at the moment) and by when (say 1 or 2 months?).

You can make the surveyor and loss adjuster aware of your complaint and sent them a copy.

This will be the way to get things done - you need to get noticed but not be too unpleasant - the people reading your complaint and trying to get things sorted are unlikely to be the people who caused this mess.

edit:

2 more things
1) if you can, include some photos of the poor quality work/damage done by the contractors if applicable - there should be an email address at the insurers you can use
2) if all else fails, you could get a claims assessor to help fight your case, but they will take a cut of your settlement.