Advice on dealing with Aviva/Asprea following internal water damage!

morganlefay

In October we had a pipe burst spontaneously, pouring water into our sitting room. We have been struggling with Asprea ever since. They agree that substantial damage was done to walls, carpet and belongings, and arranged for these to be dried out. The next stage is to replace the damaged walls and ceiling and though they agree with us that the whole ceiling will need to be stripped out, re-boarded and decorated they are disagreeing with our builder about doing the same to the walls. Our builder says that the inside of the wall has 'popped' and needs to be completely replaced, the man from Asprea (who of course isn't a highly experienced builder as ours is) says that it just needs the wallpaper taking off and to be re-lined and decorated. I want to find a neutral someone ( pref with building experience) to come and arbitrate. I don't want to be left with frail walls that I can't hang anything on. I am SO sick of trying to deal efficiently with Asprea, who seem hopeless, unhelpful, un reachable. My OH and I are in our 70s and just want this all finished. Can anyone advise me please ?

[Deleted User]

Hi morganlefay,

I'm sorry to hear about how you feel Asprea are handling things and would like to look in to this for you.

If you're happy for me to take your details and liaise with our Claims team and Asprea, please email me at social@aviva.co.uk with the following details:

Your full name
Date of birth
Postcode
Claim or Policy reference number
Your MSE username (so I can link your email to this post)
Anything else you want to add

Naturally we want to get you back to the position you were in prior to the burst pipe and to the standards both you and we expect.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Marv
Aviva Social Media Support

morganlefay

Thank you Marv. I will certainly be in touch. I had no idea how to get to the right person at either Aviva or Asprea, but if you can help us that would be wonderful, and stop my sleepless nights. Thank you again.

FlameCloud

The issue is that builders make a lot of money from stripping out plasterboard as its easy to put up but they can charge a lot of labour hours for it. They will come in, wave their 'damp' meter around, without actually understanding how to interpret its measurements or what it even measures and happily proclaim that everything needs to come out or its all doomsday.

Organistations such as the BDMA have done alot of research into the management of water damaged properties and the days of insurers accepting wholesale strip outs of properties are gone - even flood damaged houses can now be dried and repairing without replastering. Most asprea contractors will have been forced down the qualification route for damage management now as well, so years in a the building trade can be contested with recognised qualifications in a subject.

That being said, I do feel for you have Asprea deal with it. They are actually part of Aviva, and renowned throughout their sphere of influence as quoting very low to initially get the work, and then adding on variation after variation to bump up their margins to actually make a profit from the job.

morganlefay

Thanks Flamecloud, I hear what you say, but this builder has done a lot of work for us recently (complete new kitchen and knock through to make larger room, two bathrooms - complete refit, one downstairs toilet.) and he/they have been punctual, honest, polite, efficient and clean about the house. When they finally left we actually missed them ! He lives in the same village as us and if there was anything against him the grapevine would have let us know. So when he says that the wall has popped we believe him as opposed to the very young, very inexperienced-seeming, very difficult to get hold of Asprea person, who keeps changing his mind and altering what he has said. Fortunately it is all documented. But I'd have to say that while I have had a good experience with Aviva as car insurers (though high premiums) we will NOT re-insure the house again with Aviva just because of Asprea.

dacouch

What Flamecloud (Who is a very experienced Loss Adjuster) is that Insurers deal with thousands of claims similar to yours. As a result they spend a lot of money researching what methods work which ultimately will be the overall cheaper methods.

It would be impossible for your local builder to have access to the same technical knowledge as the Insurer.

That's not to say the loss adjuster is correct as they do make mistakes but just because your builder says it needs replacing does not mean that it does

morganlefay

Hi Marv, have just emailed you with details of the whole tedious story.Many thanks for contacting me, Morgan.

morganlefay

Thanks dacouch, if only it were just the wall problem. That's only one of the problems we've had with which Mr Asprea hasn't helped at all, and its now been 5 months since our flood. I completely understand what you're saying about Aviva's experience in repairing walls, and what would be the cheapest methods to repair them. But sadly I've seen the mass of powder which is now behind the wallpaper where a wall used to be and I'm interested in having a reliably sturdy wall again, not in the cheapest ways of making it look OK. We have heavy pictures which used to hang on the affected wall and I wouldn't dare hang them up there again. For the wall to be returned to its previous condition it has to be capable of taking the weight of the pictures again. That's not what I'd call 'betterment' as Mr Asprea does, but simply replacing like for like. But thank you for kind advice anyway

FlameCloud

What do you have on your walls? Plasterboard or normal plaster?

Ultimately, unless Asprea / Aviva agree to roll over, you are at an impasse. You could involved the FOS, however this will take a long time and given their involvement and encouragement of the BDMA in damage resolution I wouldn't bet that they would back you without evidence beyond that of your builder, who will have a vested interest in increasing the scope of the work.

[Deleted User]

morganlefay wrote: »

Hi Marv, have just emailed you with details of the whole tedious story.Many thanks for contacting me, Morgan.

Thanks for emailing us Morgan

Just to let you know, Marv has replied to your email advising you he's referred to our claims team to provide an update as soon as possible.

Many Thanks

Stephanie

Aviva Social Media Team

hollydays

How did you get on? There's another thread about Aviva on the consumer board.