Home insurance for carpets after a leak/flood

moomoobonk

Hi

Could anyone provide some advice on where we stand with regard to carpets in an insurance claim?

We had a flood originating from our shower which resulted in water seeping into 3 rooms and 2 hallways. The carpets got very wet around the walls and we pulled them up to allow both the area and carpets to dry. The underlay is also pretty shot. We have had a risk adjuster to assess the damage and he has advised that in the first instance he will instruct specialist carpet cleaners to replace the underlay, clean and refit the carpets. He has made this decision based on the fact that the property is a new build so the carpet is the same throughout and it would be too expensive to replace the lot of it, particularly as the hallways flow into the stairs.

We have an excess of £250 so essentially we will be paying £250 to have our carpets cleaned, our insurance premium will increase and it will be a large amount of labour and probably time off work for my husband to move furniture around and to organise around 3 kids. We are questioning whether it is worth the expense and upheaval but don't really know what alternative we have as we are currently stuck with carpets like cardboard, dangerous carpet grips and dodgy underlay.

Does anyone have any experience of a similar situation? Can we negotiate with them? We'd almost rather have a couple of rooms replaced and sort the hallways ourselves as at least we'd be getting something a bit more for the expense and disruption!

Thank you

Smoorbs

We had a leak from the washing machine. We claimed on our insurance and they told us about a carpet place gave us £400 for new flooring. When we went to pay the excess the guy said that he would just tell them we had paid them. There was no problem at all we had got rid of the carpets because they were soaked. Sorry I don't have any advice maybe you could hope that the guys who do the cleaning don't charge the excess.

somalt

You could ask them for a cash settlement, but that would be based on the cost of underlay and cleaning costs. If the cleaning doesn't work then they should replace all the rooms affected.

Also, the Financial Ombudsman Service would expect them to contribute to matching areas where there would be a visual impact, like adjoining rooms.

But they do usually have the right to try cleaning first, check what it says about claim settlement in your policy booklet.

moomoobonk

Thanks for the info. We're also having to pay for the cost of the shower repair so it just seems like we're going to be very out of pocket for cleaning some old carpets! Has anyone had their carpets cleaned like this and has it been successful?

InsideInsurance

davidrichard899 wrote: »

City: Boynton Beach
State: Florida

And how much knowledge do these Florida based adjusters have on UK insurance law?

Buzby

The shower repair is irrelevant sadly, as this is a maintenance issue and would never be paid for. As you have a £250 excess, it would be considerably cheaper if you replaced the u/l and hired a steam cleaner yourself.

Your costs would then not impact on your claims history, and you could transfer elsewhere if the costs rose to a different company, without requiring to admit to any claim.

With an excess as high as yours, it makes sense to keep the policy for major incidents only.

KettyNelson

Smoorbs wrote: »

We had a leak from the washing machine. We claimed on our insurance and they told us about a carpet place gave us £400 for new flooring. When we went to pay the excess the guy said that he would just tell them we had paid them. There was no problem at all we had got rid of the carpets because they were soaked. Sorry I don't have any advice maybe you could hope that the guys who do the cleaning don't charge the excess.

I fully agree with the answer. Even if you get compensated for your loss, it depends on the carpet guys how much to charge you to re-install the carpets....I think the charges will be nominal if you have already had a word with your carpet buddy...