How good has your insurance company been if you have made a storm damage claim?

flowerofscotland

I know this site is all about money saving but it's also about getting good value not just the cheapest.
So I thought I would start a thread to see what other MSEs have experienced if they have had to make a claim due to the recent storms (I'm sure I can't be the only one!).

My insurance is with Halifax - in spite of them being my mortgage provider they were still the cheapest option when I checked at renewal time. We need a repair to the roof and when I called the claims line there is an automated service due to the recent storms. It takes a while and you have to enter your policy number and listen to various messages about excesses, what isn't covered etc but provided the claim is under £750 the message was "we have registered your claim, have the work done, we will send a claim form which you must return with the bill". There was a separate option for claims over £750 and for immediate emergencies and I obviously don't know what happened on those but I was impressed with the service so far.

It was much easier getting a sensible response from the insurance company than it was getting a roofer to do the work.

That's the way it should work in my opinion and I'd be interested to know if this is the norm.

Phoenix79_2

Well.....we had 4 tiles blow off our roof and smash through the garage roof. Spent 2 hours trying to get through to Nationwide only to be told it would take 4-6 weeks before they would even look at our claim. Told them to forget it. In the end we paid a roofer mate £65 'cash in hand' to fix it.....and an excellent job he did to Our excess is £250 so it wouldn't have made sense to go the insurance route at all

mattymoo

flowerofscotland wrote:

We need a repair to the roof and when I called the claims line there is an automated service due to the recent storms. It takes a while and you have to enter your policy number and listen to various messages about excesses, what isn't covered etc but provided the claim is under £750 the message was "we have registered your claim, have the work done, we will send a claim form which you must return with the bill". There was a separate option for claims over £750 and for immediate emergencies and I obviously don't know what happened on those but I was impressed with the service so far.

It was much easier getting a sensible response from the insurance company than it was getting a roofer to do the work.

That's the way it should work in my opinion and I'd be interested to know if this is the norm.

Sorry but I may be missing something here. You think that an automated response system is a sensible / acceptable response from your insurer?

I worked for a large insurance company claims dept at the time of the hurricanes in 1987. Admittedly, auto response systems were not even thought of then - heck, we even used paper files at that time. However, staff were pulled in from various departments to handle the additional workload, we worked overtime and answered all the calls with a human voice.

If I needed to make a claim, I would expect to deal with a human being, not a voice box.

PamVegas

OUr insurance was quite similar to the op, however we did get through to an actual person but the answer was the same. Damage less than £750 just get it done and send us the bill which we happily did. However we also have a further problem that I'd like to ask advice about. Tiles from the house next door came off and have caused damage to our car, our car insurance has said they can not persue a claim through their house insurance but who is liable and how should we go about getting our car repaired?

Thanks

Astaroth

Unless you can prove negligence on your neighbours behalf (ie their roof was in a poor state of repair, they knew this and had had time to fix it but hadnt) then the damage to your vehicle is due to an act of god (ie the storm) and therefore it is you that is "liable" for the damages.

Depending on the cost, and assuming you have comprehensive insurance, will dictate if it is best to claim off your car insurance or just pay for it yourself.