Any point having house insurance ???? grrr

Feebs

Wonder if anyone has any advice.

I have an emergency water pipe leak in my bathroom and water is flooding through the ceiling down the stairs, in the hallway and through to the kitchen. This happened after I had a shower this morning and it also leaked yesterday when the sink was used. The shower cubicle and sink share a waste pipe. The toilet and bath share separate waste pipes and are not affected.

I have Emergency Home Assistance cover and contacted them as soon as the situation happened. They informed me that they could fix the pipe but as I have ceramic floor tiles in my bathroom they would not be able to take these up and re-instate them. There is no way the pipes can be accessed without removing one or more floor tiles. They suggested that I contact my main insurer as they may be able to do the whole job.

I called them straight after and was informed that I was only covered for water damage to the house i.e. room damage due to water seepage. The plumber who came to assess the damage this morning has suggested that I contact them again as he said that one or more floor tiles have to be damaged and removed before the pipes can be repaired and that naturally additional tiles (which I have) will need to be reinstated.

It just seems ridiculous that I have Emergency Home Assistance and Buildings and Contents insurance and I can't get help on either. The amount of water leaking through the floor is alarming and the floor tiles will have to come up in order to get to the pipes to fix them, surely this should be covered in my policy.

Am just about to call the insurer again but don't think I'm going to get any joy. The plumber said mending the pipe is a doddle but it's pulling up floor tiles and reinstating them that will be expensive, it's looking like I'm going to have to pay for the whole job myself.

As always, so grateful for any advice given.

Many thanks

lisyloo

It just seems ridiculous that I have Emergency Home Assistance and Buildings and Contents insurance and I can't get help on either.

That's because you are (probably) not covered on either.
Buildings and contents insurance is for perils like flood, fire, burglary and not for maintaining/fixing your home.

surely this should be covered in my policy.

Have you checked your policy? You need to read it or confirm on the phone, but my understanding is that maintaining your home is not covered (whereas the consequences of the flood like ruined celiing or walls will be).
Check it out.

Feebs

Thanks Lisyloo...insurance did say that I could claim for damage caused by leaking water but am just so fed up that even with emergency home assistance I can't get the waste pipe fixed as they won't take up the flooring tiles and put them back, there is no other way to get to the pipe. I thought of paying a workman to take up the floor tiles, getting emergency home assistance to fix the pipe and then getting the workman to re-fit spare floor tiles. My plumber said that fixing the pipe itself is a really small cheap job, it's the removal and refit of the tiles that is the expensive part. It looks like I'm going to have to fund the whole job myself and am terrified at how much it may cost.

lisyloo

I sympathise, but it would appear that the majority of the job is not covered.

I can imagine the tiling is expensive relative to the pipe repair, but I can't see why removing a few tiles (which you already have) and putting them back down, will be an extortionate job.
Is it in a difficult area? otherwise why is it so expensive just to grout a few tiles in place?

InsideInsurance

Home emergency is just that, an emergency. I am surprised they aren't covering lifting the tiles, as certainly others would but none would cover reinstating them as this isn't an emergency.

Trace and locate/ access is a sore point on Home insurance, generally cheap policies don't cover it but more comprehensive policies do.

ACG

Home Emergency is there to stop any damage gettign worse - ie a window smashed they will BOARD it up, they wont replace the glass.

Some insurance companies do cover the cost of getting to a burst pipe and repairing it, others do not. I have only recently got into home insurance and didnt realise this was the case either. Think of the direct line advert that was run about 3 weeks ago - they only recently started to cover that.

Its mad (i agree with you) ive gone out and done loads of research on this and only ever use companies who will cover that as standard along with some other things ive picked up over the last few weeks.

This is one of those times where cheapest isnt always best.

The good thing is though, if its only a couple of tiles (ie no plaster, walls etc) then any fool can put a few tiles back (ive tiled my kitchen from scratch with no experience and apart from cutting around a plug socket, it was a doddle). Its just a case of whether you have spares or if they can take them off without damaging the tiles.

Feebs

I'm afraid Home Insurance is a minefield to me..I lost my partner last year and he understood the 'small print' much better than me, it's just one of those things that I'm learning through experience. I would have been happy to pay for this type of cover but obviously missed this when I got a new quote. I'm not sure where the waste pipe is, so it could be one tile or it could be 4 or 5, in any case I have some spare (thank god) and it isn't too extortionate. Thanks for all replies, I really do appreciate it..

InsideInsurance

Home insurance is massively more complex in terms of exactly what is and isnt covered than the likes of Motor. Unfortunately the Aggregators that push people to buy on price and headline cover items are really masking this fact and inevitably insurers are building products for distribution via the aggregators that do the minimum to get the tick in the box and not covering those items that aren't highlighted by them to be able to get the price as low as possible.

Motor insurance I tend to buy the cheapest, Life, CI, Home etc are worth investigating the products more and paying for what you really need.