Garden Wall blown down in storm

Quentin

Spikey1 wrote: »

..... Your Insurers have served you well here. It would be nice if you remember this at renewal. Customer loyalty is a real problem nowadays....if you've got a good Insurer and the price is reasonable:T...stick with them.

How have they "served you well"?

They tried it on.

Had the OP not made a formal "complaint", but accepted their rejection (as many would) he would be £1000s out of pocket.

The complaint was indefensible, and had they tried to they know the FOS would have sided against them!

As far as insurers wanting customers to be loyal, perhaps they should reflect this when sending out renewals by incorporating a loyalty discount rather than adding a mug's premium which makes it routine for us to see how much they are trying to rip us off, by getting a quote as a new customer.

Spikey1

Nope .....it was the Assessors (who I take to mean 'Adjusters) who got this wrong. Yes, the Insurers appointed them, however Insurers appoint Adjusters to make right decisions NOT wrong ones. In my previous post I suggested to the OP that he bypass the Adjuster and go straight to the Insurer.....this seems to be what he/she has done. The Insurer has overturned the incorrect decision and, hopefully, there will be something in their service contract which sees the Adjusters being punished for their error.

I can assure you that the Insurer will be mightily p***d off that their appointed sub-contractor (ie. the Adjusters) have messed up here.

My personal opinion is that things work better when the Insurer has their own in-house Adjuster unit where errors such as this are reflected in the employee's performance rating and therefore hits the Adjuster in the pocket.

tranceaddict

Whilst pleased with the outcome I cannot help but think it was just the insurance company trying it on.

The original assessor had been flown down from Scotland (along with 3 of his colleagues) just to deal with the workload caused by the storm, he came to see me on a Saturday and said him and his colleagues were down for 2 weeks, working 12 hour days 7 days a week just doing these assessments.

If the see approx 10 clients a day each thats about 420 claims over the 2 week period, if the assessors rejected ALL of them I suspect about half would have taken it on the chin and done nothing, if the other half complain (like I did) they just overturn the decision, the customer is happy, but they've save 210 claims!

Cynical I know, but thats my thinking, though I have to say everyone I have been involved with so far at the insurance company has been helpful, professional and courteous so far, so who knows.

Anyway, quotes are being gathered and hopefully should get a payment within the next week or two so I can have a new wall before christmas :T

vaio

Spikey1 wrote: »

Nope .....it was the Assessors (who I take to mean 'Adjusters) who got this wrong. Yes, the Insurers appointed them, however Insurers appoint Adjusters to make right decisions NOT wrong ones. In my previous post I suggested to the OP that he bypass the Adjuster and go straight to the Insurer.....this seems to be what he/she has done. The Insurer has overturned the incorrect decision and, hopefully, there will be something in their service contract which sees the Adjusters being punished for their error.

I can assure you that the Insurer will be mightily p***d off that their appointed sub-contractor (ie. the Adjusters) have messed up here.

My personal opinion is that things work better when the Insurer has their own in-house Adjuster unit where errors such as this are reflected in the employee's performance rating and therefore hits the Adjuster in the pocket.

maybe but to the punter the assessor/adjuster is indistinguishable from the insurer so the speculative/spurious/knee jerk rejection of the claim which gets reversed when challenged just adds to the perception that insurers are out to fleece their customers.

*Scarlett

Of course it could be that the assessor made a mistake but that's no relief to the customer!

If they were dealing with such a high volume of claims in the 2 week period, a mistake could become more likely.

I can't say that I agree with Spikey1 that insurers "want to pay claims".

From a customer service view it is in their interest to settle valid claims quickly (and the agent dealing with a claim would undoubtedly prefer a clear cut yes or no as to whether the claim is valid and if this is not obvious they have to go with the loss adjustor's opinion).

tranceaddict - I'm glad you got a positive outcome on the claim as you pursued the matter, but it does make me wonder if other people have had valid claims declined.

Spikey1

I can understand the cynicism but Insurers NEED to pay claims to survive. Funny enough they also NEED complaints too.......that's how they improve their service and flag up any issues/people who are causing problems.

For every 1 person who complains there are thought to be about 26 who don't actually. So there is merit in what you say. I can honestly say that having worked for a range of Insurers around the world...none of them deliberately rip their customers off. You are correct though, individual employees, reps, sub-contractors DO make mistakes. The Insurers do not want this. By the same token many claims are paid which should be declined too....so they get it from both ends really.

Anyway, I'm glad that the OP won this little battle.

Good luck all

Biff1984

Hi,

I'm in a similar situation, had 20m of wall blow over in recent storms. The loss adjustor said the exact same thing regarding height & width. What I find most annoying is that he stated in his report that there were no proper foundations. This is nothing more than dishonesty, of course there are foundations. Every quote I've had to rebuild state to use 'existing foundations'. The adjustor also said that there was no damage to neighbouring properties, more dishonesty. I can prove damage to the neighbours properties with photo's & letters.
The loss adjustor used government guidelines regarding the walls height & width, but these guidelines came into effect in 1996.
The wall was built in 1987 & as far as I'm aware, would have passed regulations of that time.
I've made my complaint to the insurance company but to no avail. I'm now taking my complaint to ombudsman.
Any input would be greatly appreciated

magpiecottage

Biff1984 wrote: »

I'm now taking my complaint to ombudsman.

Some loss adjusters (and insurance company staff) are a little - er - "over enthusiastic" in defending claims.

However, if they are asserting that the wall was incorrectly built then the onus should be on them to prove it.

What sort of survey did you have when you bought your property and was it arranged by your mortgage lender?

rs65

magpiecottage wrote: »

Some loss adjusters

I can't help thinking this is the same adjuster, who has stumbled across building regs for garden walls recently.

hugoshavez

rs65 wrote: »

I can't help thinking this is the same adjuster, who has stumbled across building regs for garden walls recently.

Or perhaps members of the same team, who've had a group email, or recent training session.