Insurance cliam on burglary

musicman100

Hi,

My Mum has had a burglary attempt which fortunately they were not successful. The insurance has sent someone one around to put in a new patio door but they have said before they will fit a new door a lintel need fitting.
Do you think the insurance should cover that or not? I am not sure?

Any body had the same problem?

Thank-you

InsideInsurance

Why does it need a new lintel?

If it was damaged in the attempt to break in then the insurance should cover it. If its just old and knackered then the insurance shouldn't cover it.

You could get a quote from someone else to replace the door and see if they too think the lintel needs replacing if its an age thing.

Insurers often pay their preferred suppliers poorly and so some are known to look to try and drum up additional business from the insured though this may breach their contract with the insurer.

FlameCloud

Timber frame being replaced with a UPVC one is the most common - the UPVC ones wont have the inherent strength in them that timber ones do.

musicman100

Hi,

There is no lintel there at the moment. It is a a late 60s bungalow which original had wood windows these were replaced with pvc and an aluminium patio door. It is the patio door that need replacing.

eddddy

musicman100 wrote: »

Hi,

There is no lintel there at the moment. It is a a late 60s bungalow which original had wood windows these were replaced with pvc and an aluminium patio door. It is the patio door that need replacing.

Could it be something to do with the following...

The bungalow may have been built with "structural window and door frames". i.e. The window and door frames were specially designed to be strong enough to bear the load of the building above them - so no lintels were needed.

These would have been replaced with structural upvc window and door frames. In simple terms, they are also extra strong to bear the heavy load above them without lintels. (They probably have lots of metal reinforcement in them.)

So it may be that the builders want to replace an expensive, strong structural door frame (which doesn't need a lintel), with a cheaper, weaker non-structural door frame which does need a lintel.

If that's the case, obviously you need to tell the insurers that you want a like-for-like structural frame instead.

(Or if it's just the door being replaced, and not the frame - are the builders just daft, and don't realise it's a structural frame?)


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Edit to add...

I guess it's also possible that the original upvc window fitters were cowboys, and used a non-structural frame without a lintel. And these builders are correctly pointing out the mistake.

FutureGirl

If the insurers are replacing the door with a PVC/Aluminum patio door, then no they wouldn't cover the cost of the lintel.

Insurance is to put you back in the same position you were initially in prior to the incident. If you didn't have lintel previously, with that type of door, then the insurers don't need to cover the cost of putting lintel in.