Santander home ins. complaints/how to complain?

rach37

Hi, new to this forum but wanted to get a bit of advice. In feb this year my house had a sewage leak and we (myself, partner and baby) had to move out instantly, its been a nightmare with santander, we have been treated apallingly, are seriously out of pocket as a result and are still chasing up issues with the house that have not been dealt with after 7 months. I am currently putting together a letter of complaint and am requesting compensation. Have any of you been successful in getting any kind of compensation from santander? How is the best way to go about complaining. I've never complained to a bank/building society in my life but we have been treated so bad i am not hesitating.
thanks for your help/advice in advance,

rachel

huckster

Santander don't administer their own Insurance. I think Budget Insurance do this on their behalf. Budget don't have a good reputation for customer service or complaint handling. You might struggle to get any compensation, unless you involved the FOS.

Check the policy wording for their complaints process and follow it. They have up to 8 weeks to resolve to your satisfaction and if you can't reach agreement, you can take the complaint to the FOS.

You could also write to the CEO of Santander to let them know of the problem. They might put pressure on Budget to deal with your complaint properly and to offer compensation.

Bangton

Hi rach37. Santander should have their complaints procedure outlined in your policy documents. If it's a genuine case where significant delays have occured, where updates were not provided and you have been left out of pocket or without repairs being completed to your home it really doesn't matter if people have managed to get compensation out of Santander or not - they are obliged to compensate as appropriate taking into consideration YOUR case and the issues you have suffered. The timescale for any bank/insurer to respond is 8 weeks before your right to refer to the FOS kicks in (Financial Services Authority). On receipt of your complaint Santander should provide info relating to the FOS which you should keep hold of in case you do need to refer to them (the FOS are completely impartial by the way so never feel as though they will be on Santander's side).

rach37

thank you both for your helpful advice.
I believe santander go through aviva for home ins. I am writing the complaint now, hopefully all will be resolved soon.

Blackavar

Hi
Hope you got it sorted.
I am currently possibly about to start a complaint with Santander who do in fact use Aviva.
I am keeping all the details in a blog - the web address is in my profile.