Evacuated from house. What receipts should we be keeping?

dori2o

We have been caught up in the incident in Shaw, Oldham where a young boy has died after his and neighbouring houses were reduced to rubble after an explosion.

Luckily we have somewhere to stay but all we have are the clothes on our back, and my bank card. Everything else is in the house and we cannot get to anything. It will potentially be anything upto 4 weeks before we get our house back.

We are going out to buy a set of clothes each as we can't stay in the same clothes.

Then theres the fact that the electric/gas and water has been turned off, so our 2 freezers full of food will be worthless.

I have not yet been in touch with the insurers as suprisingly there has been so much to do.

Any advice would be appreciated.

(we do obviously have buildings AND contents insurance)

dacouch

Is there any damage to your home?

HappyMJ

Keep receipts for everything. Get your hosts to charge you a small and reasonable amount to cover your expenses whilst there. I'd guess at £25 per night as a fair figure to include everything.

phill99

You need to get in touch with your insurers tomorrow first thing. They may put you in a hotel, or if it's convenient to stay where you are, will agree a 'lodging allowance'. In my experience, this is normally between £10 and £20 per person per night for adults and app. three quarters of that per night per child.

Keep all receipts for all expenditure: clothing, toiletries, food, mobile fone top ups, transport, travel, out of pocket expenses etc. Given the nature of the incident they may well get an assessor out to you either the same day or within 24 hours.

Good luck.

rs65

phill99 wrote: »

You need to get in touch with your insurers tomorrow first thing.

Presumably only if there is damage to their home?

phill99

rs65 wrote: »

Presumably only if there is damage to their home?

No. Policies don't just cover damage to the home. Many cover you for accommodation if you are unable to occupy your home due to an event like this one. Therefore, you need to get in touch with hem ASAP.

dacouch

phill99 wrote: »

No. Policies don't just cover damage to the home. Many cover you for accommodation if you are unable to occupy your home due to an event like this one. Therefore, you need to get in touch with hem ASAP.

With most Insurers the home needs to be damaged by an Insured peril for alternative accomadation.

Which Insurers have you found that would cover it with no damage

dori2o

Currently the only 'noticeable' damage is the front window has gone through (just one pane of the double glazing), but we have to wait for the structural engineers report.

TSx

dacouch wrote: »

With most Insurers the home needs to be damaged by an Insured peril for alternative accomadation.

Which Insurers have you found that would cover it with no damage

Saga would if there's damage to a neighbouring property Peril 16

rs65

TSx wrote: »

Saga would if there's damage to a neighbouring property Peril 16

Chubb Masterpiece does as well. I don't see it on Hiscox wording.

They seem to be alternative accomodation costs only rather than clothing expenses etc..

malcindebt

Been worrying about this all night.

As the explosion which caused damage to the house has potentially been caused deliberately, the guy from the insurance company yesterday said it is possible that my policy will not cover the damage caused.

Surely this is acon as a way get out of paing for the damage to my property by the insurance company.

I can appreciate that if I intentionaly damaged MY OWN property there would be no claim applicable, but surely it's not the case that they can wriggle out of their obligations because some idiot trying to top himself devastated a whole area possible resulting in 10+ houses having to be demolished?