Home contence insurance claim

PricelessGemz

We recently had a death in the family so I arranged for my partner and I along with our 3 children To attend a friends BBQ for a few hours. We left our border collie at home with the TV on. Later in the evening, my partner told me that people were saying there was a huge storm back home late on the 11th of August, Knowing my dog does not like storms, and the children were tired, we started our 45 min drive home. When we got home, our dog had completely trashed our front room. He was so frightened that he even cut himself so badly, he bled all over the place, ripped our sofas, rug, damaged the walls, tall lamp, curtains, blinds, curtain rail, door handle, my children's toys. All bitter, broken, blood splattered and so on.

This is the first time I have claimed through an insurance company. We are with Natwest. We contacted them and they told us before clearing anything away for safety reasons, to take photos of everything. We did this and made a list of everything that was damaged, broken, blood splattered. As I had never claimed before I did as I was told.

We had a call the next day to say an assessor was coming out to talk to us about the claim and what was going to happen next. When they arrived, they were 2 men from a company called Rainbow. They asked for the excess of £100 which we were told about, took photos and took notes of what happened. Then they asked me what did I want to claim for? I told them some items could be fixed and they ticked them off anyway and said, just put everything down. Then they left.

The next day, I called Natwest, to ask if a desicion had been made, they told me yes. It was being put down as storm damage and all our items were to be destroyed and replaced!

The next day, the same company RAINBOW, came to collect our damaged items, after I had received a call from Natwest. They took 10 of the 16 items from our house and left.

The next day, I had a call from UK Assistance, who told me an assessor would be coming the next day to talk to us about how these items would be replaced and so on. When she arrived, she asked for a description of what happened. I told her, and then showed her the damage and all the photos. She then left asking for the photos to be sent to her for her to be able to make a decision regarding the claim.

Confused I called, as I had already been told we were having all our items replaced. The person I spoke to said that a report on this had been sent to the assessor stating this and that she had not read it. I then had a call from the assessor to tell me she was so sorry for the confusion and that she had not been at her office to read any reports.

The next day, I then had an email from the assessor asking for the rest of the photos as a desicion had not been made. CONFUSED!!! Was not the word.

She then rung me to say the only 10% of the items could be replaced as the rest of the items had been chewed, but some of the items to be replaced HAVE been chewed. All the items to be replaced are all the cheep items. All the items NOT to be replaced are All the expensive items!!! What do I do? I'm dylexic to which doesn't help. We have complained to the FOB and have said we will NOT except the offer, but where do I go from here!!!!

We have had to deal with 3 companies, Natwest don't want to know, UK assisted are taking ages to reply, and RAINBOW have disposed of all out items. Some of which, could have been fixed, but we were told by RAINBOW to put them down!!!!

We had been told that by law, all the items taken from the house have to be returned or replaced. Our sofas were not taken as I asked for them to stay until replacements were on there way. It's been a horrible few weeks, so confusing...... Where do we go from here???
PLEASE HELP!!!!

InsideInsurance

Certainly if they have removed items which they have subsequently said are not covered then they must return them to you.

Evidently you need to speak to your insurers to ascertain what is going on given the differing information you are receiving and from the fact items have been removed that you are now being told arent being covered.

You mention however that you have been to the FOS? What exactly have they done? Had you already received Natwest Insurance's final response prior to going to the FOS?

dacouch

Policies often exclude damage by chewing