Saga Insurance + Norwich Union + Cunningham Lindsey

MikeM

Our house was flooded in January and I am in the (long & tedious) process of making a claim with Saga Home Insurance. The appointed loss adjusters are Cunningham Lindsey (Cardiff) and dealing with them has not exactly been a wonderful experience !!

Have any other members had experience of these people and has anyone any tips as to how one can 'speed' them along ? I just get the feeling that their protracted procedures are designed to 'wear' claimants into a state of losing the 'will to live' !

Not altogether happy (but have accepted) about the way that tokens and vouchers are issued in order to get replacement goods and even un-happier that flooring has to be 'bought' from their 'approved' suppliers who have to pay 'Independant Inspections' (C/L appointed) an annual £55.00/year membership fee and then 'discount' their invoice by a whopping 12.5%.

Am I actually obliged to accept these arrangements ? Help and advice appreciated !

mara

Hi,

C/L can be a bit hit & miss - some of their adjusters are better than others. There are some offices where you just have to keep constantly chasing them to get anywhere. If you are not happy with their service, get back on to your insurers. SAGA may try to refer you back to C/L, but you can always remind them that they are your insurers, they appointed C/L you have made every effort to deal with C/L but they are still failing to deliver. Get SAGA to chase them on your behalf, it doesnt always work but usually some pressure from insurers can get them moving again. You can always ask to speak to a manager at C/L as well. If you still have problems, escalate your complaint via your insurers. With regards to the carpets, if the suppliers cannot source a suitable replacement, you can get another quote from a supplier of your choice. This must be a like for like quote, usually if there is not a great deal of difference in cost, you will usually be allowed to go with your own suppliers, or they may offer a cash settlement on the grounds of what II have valued your carpet at. You are also free to obtain quotes for carpets if you think that II have not given you a fair quote.

Hope this of some help & that you can get this sorted soon.

MikeM

Good advice - thanks.

In searching these forums I have noted that everybody seems to be keen on 'best price' for house/contents insurance. I would really recommend that everybody carefully read their policy documents on getting their 'lowest cost' home insurance. Trouble is that you usually do not get these until you have paid and you don't know what the actual 'service' is like until you come to claim !

I haven't claimed in 20 odd years and the process of dealing with layer upon layer of companies has just amazed me. I thought that Cunningham Lindsey were there to assist me and manage the project. I was sadly mistaken - their efforts are focussed on minimising the costs. However I suppose they do work for the Insurance company - not me and they are called 'loss adjusters' !

In all the experience has been 'just about acceptable'. Would be interested to hear from others 'punters' and their experiences with other insurance companies ? Apart from the fact that I probably have little choice but to go back to Saga (now that I have made a claim) I don't think I would recommend them ! Mind you I wouldn't recommend being flooded - it's not much fun.

dunstonh

House insurance policies are not all the same. Sure, they have the main features very similar but a number will shave off things here and there which may only become important in a minority of cases. A few pence knocked off could cost many pounds later on.

The same goes with car insurance where courtesy car and quality of legal/excess reclaims service can differ.

Life assurance has it with addons such as death of children or guaranteed insurability in the event of specific events.

CI has it the number of extra things that are covered beyond the core conditions.

PHI has it mainly on the definition of illness and when you can claim.

ASU has it on how contract workers are treated and definition of illness.


You should never just look at price.

poundsshillingsandpence_2

MikeM wrote: »

Would be interested to hear from others 'punters' and their experiences with other insurance companies ?


Apart from the fact that I probably have little choice but to go back to Saga (now that I have made a claim) I don't think I would recommend them !

Thanks for this post concerning CL. I have spent a miserable weekend wondering and deciding my next move.

We started a subsidence claim with our insurers "Prudential" in Sept06, CL were immediately appointed as the loss adjusters and an architect surveyor was swiftly sent along to discuss and inspect with us. He made an instant decision that a repair was needed and there was no need for further testing to see if the damage got any worse and explained the procedure to us.

Estimated time for the repair to be done and finished was Feb/March with approx 8 weeks work.
To cut a very long story and saga short it is now April and we still havnt reached conclussion as to whether CL's Contracters are doing the work or we will take a settlement figure and get our own local tradesmen in to do the work.
The surveyor visited in Feb to assess the plan of work required along with a representative of the contractors and we are still waiting the final report along with an offer.

I rang CL two weeks ago to ask what was happening and was told they are still waiting for the contractors to get back to them and they would turn the paperwork round in a week and get it out to us, I rang Prudential at the same time and said I wasn't very happy and they said if I have been on to CL there was not a lot more they could do, the claim was agreed and open and would remain for as long as required to get the work done.

If we choose to get our own quotes and men in they will lift the subsidence cover while the work is being done and not return it till it had been inspected and agreed and if in the future further problems accured we would have to start another claim obviously with another £1000 excess payable, if we continued with CL and their chosen contracters the claim would be continued if further developements occurred .

Until now I have had no complaints with my insurers we have had a small claim in the past and it was settled very quickly.
I know we are paying slightly over the top for our insurance but the cover is excellent in comparison to some of the cheaper policies on the market and I dont see we have a choice anymore anyway as once you have a subsidence claim round your head you struggle to find other companies that will take you on.
I stumbled over this last week and do intend passing it on to CL before I agree and sign anything regarding my repair job


Our home is suffering from subsidence and we are not coping very well as it just seems to go on and on. In July 2004 we had a burst water main in our drive and this erupted at such a rate that it ran the length of our drive and out into the road. We put a claim in to our insurers SAGA and they appointed Cunnigham Lindsey as the Loss Adjusters and they promised to get the water stopped with some urgency. As this started in July 2004 and nothing had been done by December, we phoned the insurance company direct and they got the leak stopped within 48 hours. With the length of time that eater was allowed to escape it did wash the sub-soil from under our bungalow away and we had large cracks appear in the walls and ceilings. We have some of the worst workmen you could ever imagine come here and they have done jobs three times over before getting somewhere near right. They would have graced the B.B.C's Rogue Traders. We have lived in a building site and our furniture goes around from room to room or out to the garagr and conservatory. We are both getting on in years and we neither enjoy very good health. So all this piling of the front bay and the cracks being repaired and then opening up again is beyond the state of ridiculous. We get new carpets and curtains and new furniture put in and it all starts again when the same cracks open up again. It is now 2007 and once again cracks have re-appeared in our front lounge. Don't anyone ever believe that making an insurance claim is plain sailing, because ours has been and still is an ongoing nightmare.

extracted from this link in The Telegraph[ very slow to open ]

MikeM

Reading your story and the quoted Telegrapgh story has in some ways cheered me and made me count my blessings. It seems to me that CL just 'wait for things to happen' (which, of course, they don't) ! I have had to chase every painfull inch of the way and in some ways I think the easier scheme is to sort it out yourself and appoint your own trades people over whom you then have some control ? However that is complicated when faced by your dilemma of taking total responsiblity to then absolve the Insurance company of any further claims.

For our own situation, at present we have no furniture on the ground floor of our house and in order to clear the house for the repairs and decoration they even wanted to take away all the contents of the kitchen cupboards - pots, pans, the lot. That we are 'camping out' on the first floor of our house since the middle of February seems of little concern to anyone. I therefore just cannot imagine the distress that the elderly couple in the story must have experienced but I suppose the 'stress' is not something that ever comes into a loss adjusters calculations ?

poundsshillingsandpence_2

MikeM wrote: »

For our own situation, at present we have no furniture on the ground floor of our house and in order to clear the house for the repairs and decoration they even wanted to take away all the contents of the kitchen cupboards - pots, pans, the lot. That we are 'camping out' on the first floor of our house since the middle of February seems of little concern to anyone.

well the way we see it is that we are the losers which ever way it goes despite trying to cover all eventualities by getting what we believe the best insurance in the first place.

Once they start here we have three rooms untouched, the kitchen, office and one bedroom.

As you say they want the areas vacated lock stock and barrel, we have nowhere to store to empty as requested and could be left with [ three ] sharing one bedroom, 2 adults and one teenager ??

Despite having £14000 on the policy for alternative accomadation to date nothing has been offered in the way of storage etc. I dont want to move out but will be asking for a container or storage space somewhere before we go much further.
A scope [ an area] is given a schedule of 5 working days and they want two areas so 2 scopes available at any one time ?? We have 7 areas effected so they have estimated 6 to 8 weeks for the job.

I understand where they are coming from with regard us getting it done and lifting cover while it is doing so , I expect the temptation to some to have a large cheque and not do the work would be very great. I would be happier if they didnt pay us the money but agreed our own men and pay them instead of their own chosen contracters but I am hesitant to keep suggesting things as each time there seems to be a 2 month gap in replying.

Their contracters are approx 60 miles away from us and want access week days from 8 - 5, we have said from the start we will not release a key and they must be attended at all times, the work schedule from the contracters asks that we fill the daily diary in on the workers so they are expecting us to be here at all times anyway, something we cant honour and the contracters say they cant work with our stipulations.

This is the reason we asked to use our own men

I sympathise with you as a flood claim is a very different situation altogether and to be living in these conditions must be so distressing, I would be climbing the walls by now.

At least we are still livable but non the less the way they are dragging it along is very annoying.

Oh well Tuesday tomorrow and my phone will be red hot again ........ dont expect it will do much good though.

mara

If you haven't been offered alternative accommodation, you should ask C/L for an inconvenience allowance. This is usually calculated on a nightly or monthly basis, say £20 a night or £100 a week. If not push for AA which you are entitled to if you dont have the use of a kitchen or bathroom.

You can ask to use your own contractors - so long as their quote for the work is in line with contractors suggested by C/L, there should be no problem with this.

The claims handlers at the insurers end can be quite keen to get you to deal direct with C/L. Most of the time it is easier as it can take some time for things to be resolved via a three way conversation. However, if you are getting nowhere with C/L and you remain unhappy, dont hesitate to put some pressure on insurers to intervene. At the end of the day, they are your insurers, they appointed C/L and it is their responsiblity to ensure the claim is settled to your satisfaction.

I think at the moment, C/L are suffering from the problem of having too few staff for the amount of work they take on. I keep hearing more and more people complaining about their level of service (I work for an insurance company, and at them moment, the majority of my complaints are dealing with problems created by C/L) . The annoying thing about is most of the problems are caused by lack of communciation, problems then esculate and end up in major complaints, which could so easily be solved by returning a phone call when promised.

Sorry went slightly OT there.

Hope the above is of some use and good luck to both of you, hope you get your claims resolved soon!

MikeM

Yes, similar situation here but not actually quite as complicated as yours ! My repairs have been assigned to Mowlem Aqumen who have handed it down to Beards who have handed it down to a firm of painters and decorators who have probably used a sub-contractor to do the actual job. Can't complain here as when he arrived he was a really nice guy who did a good job ! My short lived joy was curtailed when I discovered that whilst they would be painting the walls the stained paintwork was 'out of the question'. More whingeing telephone calls required on my part for common sense to prevail.

Everything is 'handed down' so that they don't get their delicate hands dirty.

The whole thing didn't start well with the arrival in January of what I would call a 'dead-loss adjuster' who unfortunately made errors in his report which
persist to this day on the CL 'customer' web site ! Wrong descriptions and measurements of rooms/areas etc. with my letters/emails politely correcting them totally ignored.

Funny isn't it how they think that you will be at home 9-5 every day awaiting the arrival of another man with a clipboard ? My wife and I have already taken more days of our 'holidays' than we wish to think about in order to accomodate these visits. I totally understand your problem with supervising the workmen - I too would not choose to leave unknown tradesmen in my house but given the practicalities of the situation have had no little or option.

I do hope that they will be paying you for the keeping of a 'site diary' ?

As for your container or storage space problem we have enjoyed the rather excellent services of Rainbow International (appointed by CL) (no complaints here !) who rapidly removed all the wet carpets/flooring, dried out the house with industrial de-humidfiers and then (as requested by CL) moved EVERYTHING from the ground floor and put it in storage where it somewhat and somewhere inconveniently remains some four months later. Perhaps in hindsight it might have been better to have moved the furniture BEFORE circulating the dried mud and clouds of damp smelly flood water all around the house 24 hours a day for the best part of six weeks ? My consolation was that the insurers have paid (well - estimated actually) for the not inconsiderable cost of electricity used by these machines and I DO now have the money.

Off site storage is fine until you need something like a few plates for example - my grown up children arrived home on Friday with girlfriends/boyfriends so my wife had to 'nip' down to Tesco and buy a set of plates and as we have no dining room table (or chairs come to that!) we have been dining al-fresco in the garden. Good job it's been sunny. Enough of my trivial domestic arrangements - I am sure the very important grandees of Norwich Union & Co. care little for the hum-drum lives of their 'customers' as they probably bask in foreign sunshine this Easter ?

I would personally go for the local (garden perhaps?) container storage as at least you will be able to get stuff from them. We too heard mention of 'accomodation' but like you, we would prefer to 'camp out' at home rather than enjoy the pleasures of a cheap bed and breakfast.

I too have complained to Saga or I thought I was doing so until I discovered that I was actually speaking to the 'Saga Department' of Norwich Union who I
later realised are unlikely to welcome reports that are in any way unfavourable to them ! A little 'trick' I found was, that on surviving their 'telephone interogation/waiting on hold at my 0845 expense' system I would ask them to read out the current status of my claim and what had been the last action. This usally flummoxed them and they would then ask me exactly what I wanted to know.

During this process I discovered that my carefully compiled complaints and constructive comments of previous telephone calls had NOT been recorded at all !

Finally, on my last call to the very same number I was told categorically that they were unable to record complaints on their system.

On the subject of phone calls I cannot help but notice that almost all are 0845 numbers including those of my dear friends at Cunningham Lindsay.

Pity there are no retired loss adjusters who could act our behalves rather than those of the insurance company ? I have (NOW) carefully read my Policy Documents but it is so difficult to understand what you are actually entitled to and what would be a reasonable time scale for remedies to be carried out.

Yes, just like you we are 'livable' when it's just the two of us as we can 'muddle along' but the arrival of any guests is not without difficulties. Most of our friends are absolutely astonished that it has taken so long to be fixed and today - four months after the event - we still have no flooring and not even a date for getting it.

I have almost given up 'phoning' as the aggravation and stress exceeds the benefit but that I suppose is their 'scheme'. Please keep us all updated on your progress as perhaps other forum members can learn a little from our un-happy experiences ?

MikeM

mara wrote: »

I The annoying thing about is most of the problems are caused by lack of communciation, problems then esculate and end up in major complaints, which could so easily be solved by returning a phone call when promised.
!

Mara - I couldn't agree more. Lack of communications has been a big, big problem. The trouble is that everything is done by phone and on my part I do not record conversations or promises (YET !)

I can well imagine that my claims handler is doing dozens of other jobs and mine is proably way down his list. I have said to him that I know it is not his fault but that of his management but that doesn't fix it for me.

Your comments most appreciated - thanks !

poundsshillingsandpence_2

thanks to both of you a trouble shared is a trouble halved sometimes.

Mara you have given us a couple of pointers there, thanks very much.

will keep you updated. one can hope there will be a letter in the post tomorrow to save me the expence of more phone calls.