How quickly should the insurer respond? Subsidence worry

Tustastic

The assessor came to look at my property today and has told me he can see no signs of subsidence. He will be sending a report to the insurer and a letter to me confirming this. My upstairs neighbour also kindly let him in to her property to see the damage she had reported.:A
Talk about relief - I had to go and lie down:) Thanks to Astaroth, Tight Git and pbradley936 for your advice and support.:T
I will wait for the assessor's letter and the reaction from the insurer now. Meanwhile I have a question - as nothing untoward has been found, does this count as a claim or not?

Tustastic

Tustastic wrote:

I will wait for the assessor's letter and the reaction from the insurer now. Meanwhile I have a question - as nothing untoward has been found, does this count as a claim or not?

bumping this

Mrs_pbradley936

I don't think it is a claim - surely it is an inspection.

courtjester

Tustastic wrote:

The tree does have a preservation order on it. Cutting it down is not the easy option anyway, even if the Council and the owner of the garden agreed, because the roots which are left over then die and shrink and....bring more problems.
I think we need the advice of a tree specialist.

If the tree pre-dates the building then almost certainly you would not want to remove it completely. Despite the preservation order, it should be possible to get agreement to control the growth of the tree from the council if it is found that the tree is influencing ground conditions.

If you are in a block of flats, then surely any potential claim should be made on the freehold policy covering the building, not individual flat owners (contents?) policies...

Tustastic

Thanks for this response CJ. Major decoration work in my home is now taking place, forcing me to live mostly in the bedroom together with the furniture from the rest of my home. Somewhere under all this is the letter from the assessor feeding back from the inspection of the property, and I will quote from this as soon as I lay eyes on it again. I have not yet informed the freeholders. Meanwhile the renewal papers for my buildings insurance has arrived from Adrian Flux, suggesting I move to another insurer than NU for price reasons. I will get onto them
a) to let them know about the assessor's inspection and report so they can get quotes in the light of this and
b) to ask them to see if NU will quote for both buildings and contents insurance.
I think they're suggesting moving to Legal & General but today's post is now inaccessible on the other side of a furniture mountain in the hall.
I have heard that it's better to stay with the same insurers if there are ongoing concerns such as a risk of subsidence etc.
What do the MSE insurance experts advise?
Thanks in advance for all the wise and witty words.:)

Astaroth

Typically if you or a neighbour has had a subsidence type claim then other buildings insurers will not cover this so effectively you are tied into your existing insurer - even your existing insurer may increase the excess on subsidence claims after the first claim.

Remember however that home insurance is made up of 2 separate parts and just because you are tied in on buildings doesnt mean that you cant move the contents aspect (but having both with the same company often gives you discounts)

justwannabeloved

Hi

I work in a claims dept. Prob the one that took your call. However please dont blame me. As i was off sick on monday ~ promise it's true.

Firstly can i say sorry for the delay. Unfortunately the same companies used for subsidence are also used for the emergency dealings with all the storm damage that has happened during the past few weeks, believe me we have been extremly busy , and some of the stories of roof's totally blown off etc, and most upsetting to hear, especially when caller is upset / eldery. Thursday 18th Jan is a date I will not forget, believe me.

I know this does not help you, but i hope you can undertsand. Every call is important to us and an everyone is doing there best to sort insureds' problems out as soon as possible.

However, may i suggest that you call the telephone number of the company that was appointed to you over the phone, by now you should be somewhere on there system for a call back. We do are best to make things smooth as possible during the claim, and normally practise is for emergency to by called back within a certain time, but with all that has being happening this time has been delayed. We always give the appointed company's telephone number to the insured, incase they need to call them for any reason.