Huge neighbours house fire has impacted our home - Help !

therealhyper

Hello all,
hope you are all well.

Our neighbors had building work carried out at their house which caused a huge fire and has destroyed their house, and has hugely damaged ours. Thankfully no-one is hurt.

Our roof is very badly damaged,the entire house is impacted by smoke /heat damage, the roof lighting has blown and sockets are torn, the roof and roof flooring (which leads to the ceiling into the bedroom/bathroom) has lots of water damage (from the fireman putting the fire out). The roof has huge holes and broken tiles.

The smoke smell has stunk the entire house with strong smells, our carpets, pillows, bedding, clothes also smell.

We managed to camp out at our parents house with the kids but have found temporary accommodation.

Our home insurance provider have been pretty poor in dealing with us so far initially telling me the fire is not an emergency on the evening it happened and later telling me it would take 1 week before someone from insurance comes out to see us.

Our eldest child is unwell, my wife is expecting...and a overall very unpleasant and stressful period in our life. To top things, I have very recently done up our house, spending around £50k doing up the house including bathroom and kitchen.

I am quite stressed and not sure how I should proceed with this situation. In dealing with the insurance company so far, they have been very unpleasant and and unhelpful, and based on this I feel they may mess me around, even though this fire was caused by my neighbors workers.

Any advice/support is very welcome.
Thank You.

dacouch

Who are your Insurers?

magpiecottage

You will need to contact both your buildings and contents insurers if they are different.

Also, when did the incident happen and when did you tell your insurer?

shark_DB

As I understand it unless you can prove your neighbours were negligent in causing the fire then they will not be liable so you must claim from your own insurance, get on to them and tell them that your house is uninhabitable do to smoke /fire damage

therealhyper

Hi,

Home Insurance = Budget Insurance (Axa)

it happened last week and was reported a few hours after the incident had happened.

5 fire engineers arrived, fire last around 3 hours.

The senior fireman said he suspect it was the workers who caused it due to their works.

I have the a loss adjuster from our insurance company, attending tomorow..(4 days after it happened)


what can I expect? will they be on my side ?

Quentin

therealhyper wrote: »

........what can I expect? will they be on my side ?

They are paid by your insurer!

If you are worried about them after you meet them you van always appoint your own assessor to deal with them and represent your interests.

therealhyper

Quentin wrote: »

They are paid by your insurer!

If you are worried about them after you meet them you van always appoint your own assessor to deal with them and represent your interests.

Ok, but wont they try and minimize any payout, should they make one ?

somalt

Is your house attached to the property which has been destroyed, cause that could determine when they can repair yours. If it's a shared roof they might not be able to fix yours until what's going on with the neighbour is sorted.

The loss adjuster should be able to work that out though. And they will then look to appoint someone to restore your contents, getting rid of the smoke smell.

They'll probably appoint someone to do the building work too. That does mean that your insurer will be responsible if the work is rubbish, so that's not a bad thing.

Loss adjusters are normally paid a fixed fee which increases based on the cost of the claim. They will ask a lot of questions, which might not seem that relevant but it's best just to let them do it.

Normally, any problems are related to the policy wording, like only replacing damaged items, not matching undamaged stuff. They will probably try to clean stuff first rather than just replace things.

Quentin

They will "pay out" (ie deal with your claim) irrespective of whether or not they can pin it on the workmen being negligent.

The adjusters role is to ensure the insurer pays what they have to (and not more than they have to)

Assuming your policy includes alternative accommodation if your home is uninhabitable you need to press them on this now.

From what you say yours sounds unhealthy as well as uninhabitable

therealhyper

Thanks everyone for your continued comments..picking up stuff from it so its great!

Yes ours is a semi detached property, attached to the house where the fire occurred..so yes attached.

Is it worth getting a independent loss adjuster who I hire and can work on my behalf, to deal with my insurance company and takeaway the headache?

What sort of rates do they normally take? or would thier costs be covered ontop of the insurance claim payment?

dacouch

An assessor will typically charge you circa 10% to 15% plus vat of the entire value of the claim.

If you're reasonably savy you should be able to handle the claim yourself, I've had a large fire myself.

I would suggest you treat it as if it's a work task and ensure you're prepared and keep good records. You're likely to be receiving many payments including interim payments so it pays to keep track of what payments you've received and what's outstanding.

I would suggest you read your Policy booklet, they're not as difficult as people imagine, it's in effect a contract and lists what you're covered for and what you're not covered for.

The LA will ask you for a list of what contents you want to claim for and the value of each item. You may find this easier to list room by room and perhaps provide a link to someone such as argos / amazon for the same item where appropriate.