Direct Line 24 hr Home Cover

chemlock

Let me start with this. It's not 24 hr unless you count an answering machine as being part of the service.

Secondly we had a failing boiler over the Christmas period. After 3 days of trying to get it fixed by Direct Line we were told that we should get an engineer of our own and Direct Line would cover it with our policy. We were repeatedly told that everything would be OK as our limit of cover was £1000. We were also told that Direct Line would sort out the payment with the engineer who turned up.

What happened. Well the engineers company ended up charging us, as Direct Line refused to talk to them. Direct Line then stated that the call out wasn't authorised even though on three seperate occasions we were told that we should get our own engineer (Direct Line didn't have any in our area). They eventually agreed that it was in fact authorised and that we should FAX them the invoice. 28 days later and we get a letter back saying they will only pay us £500 as they have reverted to stating that it was not authorised.

I feel a county court claim coming on and would like to warn you all against using Direct Line Home Cover.

Astaroth

You may as well go to the Financial Ombudsman Service first seeing as it is free and you can go to the court after if you dont agree with the FOS decision but in both cases you should exhaust the companies own internal complaint procedure first.

I am surprised by the answer phone issue though as I have called them out of hours and never gotten an answerphone.... I assume you did call the claim line and not the customer service one?

chemlock

Yes my partner called them early on a Sunday morning due to our children being rather cold for the past three days a little bit smell (no hot water). We got the option to leave a message.

A small update. I've been told we will get a response to our last letter on either Monday or Tuesday next week. My concern is the time frame between each response. It seems to take an indefinite amount of time, then a phone call then 3 working days to get anything. Apparently they had a high number of claims (Almost like it was winter) and they need time considering the amount involved. Strange as the amount involved is £1000 which is what it states we are covered for.

Astaroth

Unfortunately it is the nature of insurance that winter will always be slower for claims handling. Customers are very price sensitive and therefore companies have to trim as much cost of operations as possible but claims is also fairly technical and so training tends to be measured in months rather than days or weeks. To have enough people to keep all claims handled within X days through out the year would require about an extra 30% of claims staff and associated office space/ IT etc all of which would then be sitting around twiddling their thumbs during summer when claims volumes are so much lower.

chemlock

I'm sure you are right. My girlfriend works in insurance and is busier in winter and during bad weather but I don't see a problem when they've stated we are covered for £1000 in giving us the £1000. That doesn't require any special handling it requires them to follow the terms of there contract.

Surely the flow should be.

1. Agree to cover cost up to £1000 (done)
2. Get invoice for cost (done)
3. Pay all costs up to £1000 (eerie silence)

This is not what is happening. It is now heading towards 3 months since we've paid out £1000. No company should take that long in fulfilling there contractual obligation to there client.

Astaroth

I wasnt defending their actions just simply explaining why it is slower in winter than summer - there should however be the same level of competency shown (though I have known some insurers to get not fully trained people in to handle calls during peak times (often sales staff who are quiet during winter) and this inevitably can cause problems - have am not aware if DL does this or not)

scheming_gypsy

If i'm right about the Direct Line Home Cover then there is no answer machine unless you didn't dial the claims number.
Although they'll cover you up to £1000 per claim it doesn't mean they'll pay £1000 for that claim. It'll more than likely be passed to the area network manager for your area who'll look at the cost of the work done and see if it's the correct charge.
IE if the work done was a £500 job but they're presented with an invoice for £1000 they won't pay the £1000.

I'm not sure about the 'Home Cover' as it doesn't ring any bells.

scheming_gypsy

Astaroth wrote:

I wasnt defending their actions just simply explaining why it is slower in winter than summer - there should however be the same level of competency shown (though I have known some insurers to get not fully trained people in to handle calls during peak times (often sales staff who are quiet during winter) and this inevitably can cause problems - have am not aware if DL does this or not)

During peak times staff (at our place) are called in on overtime when there's a higher number of calls expected. Also people from other areas may also be drafted in to assist with taking calls. It might only be to take a message but about 2 weeks ago we had a full call centre (over 400 seats) and still 100+ call queuing.
It's not possible to put everybody on incoming calls as people need to be available to organise / chase up contractors and also to take calls from people who have existing claims that are chasing parts etc.

Astaroth

Which was exactly my point

scheming_gypsy

i know.. i was just backing it up cos i know exactly how the DL claims lines work

Astaroth

I had my days in DL claims too - obviously has changed a bit since then but the core operations arent that different from what I hear