Oil leak and house insurance

maggiecon

Posted on here about and oil leak at my rental property.

Next door neighbours house has been badly affected and she is now out of her home as her floors are being dug up etc.

Contamination guys surveyed our house and have quoted £10k for clean up works and £3k for decontaimination of spoil. The underwriter has writter to me saying that " XXXX Underwriting will not employ Contractor directly but I can now confirm that I find their survey report and quotation in order and I have no objection to you instructing them to proceed as they have outlined."

What does this mean? If I instruct the works could I be liable to pay for it, Do I need my underwriters to agree that they wil pay before I proceed?

Quentin

If you instruct then you enter a contract which will include paying the bill!

If your claim has not been accepted (in writing), then ask the insurer's claims department to agree all this (and instruct the contractor)

Spikey1

You can't force the insurance company to instruct the contractor.....its entirely up to them who they choose to go into contract with.


All you need to do is ask your Insurer to confirm that liability has been accepted under the policy cover.....that's the bit missing from their letter. Once they say this you can stop worrying.


Best of luck

Quentin

Spikey1 wrote: »

You can't force the insurance company to instruct the contractor.....its entirely up to them who they choose to go into contract with.


All you need to do is ask your Insurer to confirm that liability has been accepted under the policy cover.....that's the bit missing from their letter.

Unless you get the insurer to instruct the contractor the contractor will bill you for the job and expect you to pay them.

Then you will have to await reimbursement from the insurer.

Much better to ask the insurer to do the instructing (especially when the quote is for £13,000!) then you have no financial responsibility apart from paying any excess if applicable.

vaio

and of course there is the responsibility if things go wrong.

If you pick and instruct the contractor then you need to sort things out if it goes pear shaped, if the insurer does it then any problems become theirs

InsideInsurance

Quentin wrote: »

Unless you get the insurer to instruct the contractor the contractor will bill you for the job and expect you to pay them.

Then you will have to await reimbursement from the insurer.

Not necessarily, it may be this way round or it can be that the insurer simply sends the cheque up front for the work as per the quote.

As per Vaio's comment, the main thing from the insurers perspective is that by them not instructing them they are not liable for the quality of the work thats done.

I assume you selected these guys rather than your insurers instructing them to come? Its normal practice for an insurer not to instruct if they didnt select the company as they have no way of knowing if the company you chose are cowboys or reputable

Quentin

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Not necessarily, it may be this way round or it can be that the insurer simply sends the cheque up front for the work as per the quote......

Insurers don't send out cheques in advance for jobs quoted at £13K!

At the very best you could hope for would be a cash payment would be for the ex VAT amount of the job, meaning you have to pay the bill in full, obtain a VAT receipt then apply to the insurer for reimbursement (in this case £2600 of VAT).

Much better to leave the instructing and bill paying to the insurer.

InsideInsurance

Quentin wrote: »

Insurers don't send out cheques in advance for jobs quoted at £13K!

At the very best you could hope for would be a cash payment would be for the ex VAT amount of the job, meaning you have to pay the bill in full, obtain a VAT receipt then apply to the insurer for reimbursement (in this case £2600 of VAT).

Certainly in my claims days we would, and more, only if it was a CIL settlement would it be ex VAT and VAT only paid on provision of a vat receipt.

At the end of the day if the insured doesnt get the work done and just lives with the damage then we have still discharged our liability so it really was of little interest

maggiecon

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I assume you selected these guys rather than your insurers instructing them to come? Its normal practice for an insurer not to instruct if they didnt select the company as they have no way of knowing if the company you chose are cowboys or reputable

No I didnt select them, they were doing the clean up work at my neighbours property through her insurance and so my underwriter said he would get them to undertake a survey at my property for convenience.

I am still worried that they may not pay up, so I will write to them again, asking them to confirm they will.

The contractor rang my husband yesterday looking for an instruction to proceed and told him that the insurance company said he could go ahead with the work as they were paying for it! Thankfully husband said no we would get back to them.

InsideInsurance

maggiecon wrote: »

No I didnt select them, they were doing the clean up work at my neighbours property

The key point is that your insurers havent appointed them, they've just agreed that for convenience you could get quotes from the same people.

Check with your insurers as to when you'll get paid and if it will be for the gross or net amount initially. It certainly would be a lot of money to have to pay out of your own pocket up front.

Quentin

maggiecon wrote: »

The contractor rang my husband yesterday looking for an instruction to proceed and told him that the insurance company said he could go ahead with the work as they were paying for it! Thankfully husband said no we would get back to them.

As previously advised, providing your insurer selects and instructs a contractor apart from paying the contractor your insurer will have responsibility for the job if the contractor defailts in any way.

So don't simply go with this contractor, but ask your insurer to deal with it all.