MSE News: Water users sold 'unnecessary' pipe insurance

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi Janine1972

Homeserve has asked us to pass on its contact details to try to help. MSE doesn't endorse anything a company says on the forum.

Dear Janine 1972, Please contact heretohelp@homeserve.com and HomeServe will be happy to try and assist you. Thank you.

Janine1972

Janine1972 wrote: »

Update to the last. My buildings insurance won't touch it. The leak is somewhere under the house but as there is no sign of loss or damage, buildings insurance doesn't kick in. I discussed this with Homeserve who are now happy to dig up my slate floors but will not replace the flooring afterwards. Needless to say I have not told them to go ahead. Obtaining matching slate will be near impossible and the cost of potentially replacing the entire ground floor (there are no door bars, it continues straight through all rooms) very expensive. Money I just do not have, nor can obtain. So the water continues to escape into the unknown. On the plus side if my house collapses, maybe the buildings insurance will kick in.

Well after months of phone calls and stress. I finally decided to let homeserve dig up my floors. They said that unfortunately because the leak was indoors, the £500 towards reistating the floor (mentioned in terms of the policy) did not count. They'll happily pay towards your patio but not your internal floor! The final result..... Well they brought in a company from Bolton who, once I explained that I had to fund replacing the floors myself, did their very best not to break any slates. They successfully lifted slates in two rooms and located the leak. It was repaired and the slates were refitted. I am pleased to say that I was over the moon with the effort these lads put in to minimise any damage. So while things looked very bleak initially, I guess things turned out alright in the end. :T
My only hope now is that another leak doesn't develop as the pipe is obviously perishing and has only been repaired, not replaced.

Cardea

We've just had a mains leak on our Victorian property and the insurance company paid for the repair of the pipe but advise, as does the water supplier, that we have a new mains installed as they won't insure for any more water leaks. (The Water Supplier repaired the stopcock in the road but won't repair anything on our property).

So we've had 2 quotes at wildly differing prices, (the largest almost £5K). One (affiliated to the waterboard) guarantees the pipe for 5 years (not very long, is it!?) and suggest we guarantee using Homeserve. I'm not sure what to do - clearly we don't want another leak as the current one has caused thousands of pounds of damage to our home - a nightmare!. But Homeserve have not got a good reputation, it seems. I could find other companies to insure but it is worth it?

So what do forum users advise?

kingstreet

It's worth bearing in mind the better buildings insurance contracts include "trace and access" cover which provides;-

Trace and access cover upto £5,000 – covers the cost of tracing leaked water and oil and repairing damage caused by the investigations.