Low ball offer from Insurance company - Water leak

marklamar

In a nut shell I am trying to see if anyone's been in the same situation with these insurance companies.

Last week we had a water leak in the breakfast room, in trying to resolve this we had to call a builder out who identified the issue after bringing down some of the ceiling and locating the pipe in the bathroom above.. we were advised at this time to make a claim as both room would need a re-dec, the bathroom floor which was carpeted was soaked underneath the underlay and the wooden floor board would need replacing, the ceiling on the room below would also need re-doing along with two plaster board walls.. the builder said we should be looking at a claim for around 4k..


insurance man came round this morning and offered £700 cash or we could wait for their builder to do the work.. although we were warned that due to all the storm damage claims they were dealing with they could not say when they would repair things.


with a pregnant wife looking after this at home and baby due early next year I am not sure how best to get this repaired... i think we have been low balled by the insurance company but dont see any way forward other than excepting their low payment and paying the rest ourselves.


thoughts & experiences please...

hugoshavez

marklamar wrote: »

In a nut shell I am trying to see if anyone's been in the same situation with these insurance companies.

Last week we had a water leak in the breakfast room, in trying to resolve this we had to call a builder out who identified the issue after bringing down some of the ceiling and locating the pipe in the bathroom above.. we were advised at this time to make a claim as both room would need a re-dec, the bathroom floor which was carpeted was soaked underneath the underlay and the wooden floor board would need replacing, the ceiling on the room below would also need re-doing along with two plaster board walls.. the builder said we should be looking at a claim for around 4k..


insurance man came round this morning and offered £700 cash or we could wait for their builder to do the work.. although we were warned that due to all the storm damage claims they were dealing with they could not say when they would repair things.


with a pregnant wife looking after this at home and baby due early next year I am not sure how best to get this repaired... i think we have been low balled by the insurance company but dont see any way forward other than excepting their low payment and paying the rest ourselves.


thoughts & experiences please...

Who came round and made the offer?

On the details you've given, it's difficult to comment on the price, though it looks like both the builder and the (loss adjuster?) are taking liberties a little.

If you're ooking for people to comment on the price, let us know:

Size of bathroom
How many floorboards
Will bath / any tiles have to come out/off?

Size of breakfast room
Does it just require painting, or does any of the ceiling need to come down?

You can ask the ins co/loss adjuster / claims company to confirm what work they felt was required and based their offer on, while getting two written quotes from builders, then negotiate with them. Doesn't have to take too long.

rs65

I think you need a formal quote from a builder or two to be able to consider this.

If it comes to more than £700 just get the insurers to do the repairs.

marklamar

sorry bit lacking on details.. I was in a rage earlier... wife in tears.. not good!

we have insurance through bank of Scotland and it was one of their guys... wife said he was nice enough chap just didn't agree on the final outcome.. i suppose because we had the builder (handyman guy) over to find and fix the leak in the first place he could see all the damage as and when it was occurring


the size of the bathroom is around 8ft by 8ft and the room below is slightly larger.. the builder had to take out the bath in order to try and find the offending pipe work... unfortunately it broke around the edge and was taken away, the floor boards are the larger ply board/ chipboard type.. i would say maybe 8ft by 2... the ones under the bath was rotten and when we did find the leak by the toilet that one was rotten awell. we were advised to replace all the floorboard and carpet in the bathroom. i dont think any tiles were affected.


in terms of the room below, the walls are plasterboard covered in wall paper and sodden after the leak (although have dried now) the builder had advised to replace the plasterboard as it was rotten or would be due to the water, the same with the ceiling which is made of wooden slates (kind of like a sauna) we had to pull 3 of these out and we also advised the ceiling supports would need replacing so the whole ceiling would need to come down.


obviously we are keen to get things sorted and made good as a whole rather than just replacing a couple of floorboards here and there and ending up with a patch work dining room but the quote from both parties seem to be way out.


we spoke with the insurance people and they advised that what they were offering was for DIY and minus VAT so prices will differ..


we will get two or more quotes together and see where we are after that..

lisyloo

Why would you accept a cash offer for DIY when you are entitled to have this fixed professionally?
I would be asking the insurers to repair it.

marklamar

i could not agree more... the issues with getting it fixed is that we will have to wait for 'their' people to do it and we were advised that due to all the storms and flood calls they are dealing with they could not commit a time frame.

vaio

with a heavily pregnant wife living for an extended length of time without a bathroom is unreasonable so tell them that if they don't fix it sharpish then you'll need alternative accommodation.

If their own workforce can't cope then they should let you employ someone else

lisyloo

living for an extended length of time without a bathroom is unreasonable

Is there a shower? toilet? Can you safely get into and out of the bathroom or not?
It wasn't clear to me from the OPs post that they have no useable bathroom.

Clearly they need to put in place some emergency repairs if necessary or find you alternative accomodation. They can call in other people if necessary when they are busy.

It sound to me like you need to get a bit assertive.
I don't mean rude or angry, but if it's not acceptable to live like that then you need to demand emergency reapirs or alternative accomodation and if "their" people are busy then they need to
a) get someone else of their choosing
b) authorise you to get someone
or
c) authorise alterivative accomodation.

If you don't get any joy over the phone then put it all in writing and send a formal complaint ASAP.
You need to be clear on what they problem is and what you want done about it. Try not to get angry it doesn't help, but you are going to need to get assertive as they will try to get away with doing as little as possible if they can.

marklamar

thanks for the feedback guys, we are lucky enough to have a 2nd bathroom but thats a whole other story - in the whole leak fiasco the builder looked at the possibility of the water coming from that bathroom rather than the one above the breakfast room... in doing so identified a leak in there aswell... luckily it hadn't caused any major issues just some staining of the kitchen ceiling..

our insurance guy that came this morning said that it was a 2nd leak and as such could not be processed on the same claim and we would have to fork out another £500 of that excess and it wasnt worth the hassle..


its not been a good day folks : )


we are now getting two quotes for the work on the main leak and will persue some additional monies from the insurance company £700 does not really cut it when the work is going to cost another grand on top no doubt..


always read the small print folks...