Claim against my Builders' Professional Indemnity Insurance

infoseeker2014

Hi
I don't know if anyone here has any ideas on how to approach the following difficult situation?
I employed some builders and they turned out to be an utter disaster - i.e. poor quality, lack of activity, heavily front-loaded payments, etc. To cut a long story short, as they were members of the FMB I used the Alternative Dispute Resolution service, which was a contractual requirement - we went through Adjudication implemented by the RICS. I won my Adjudication and was awarded £60k. Of course, the builders never paid and have now gone into insolvency (they are facing a whole load of claims from other people including Trading Standards, etc).
My question relates to their insurance. We have found out they are insured (underwritten by Zurich), which covers Adjudication. However, Zurich won't speak to me as they say the claim needs to come from the builder. Of course, the builder will not communicate and this is simply not an option.
The Official Reciever has suggested that he is effectively running the company now, and could make a claim, but he doesn't seem that motivated to do so.
Is there any way I can unlock their insurance without the builder themselves raising the claim?
Thanks

dacouch

Issue proceedings is normally how to invoke PI.

Have you spoken to your own broker and have they given you any advice

rs65

Have a read.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/10/contents

I’m not convinced that the problems you mention will be covered by a PI policy though. If the OR has access to an insurance policy to deal with a £60k liability then I would expect them to use it.

stator

You Sue, if the insurance covers the claim they will take over defense.

infoseeker2014

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.
My own Buildings insurance is not interested. I honestly thought I was covered but somewhere buried deep in the small print was an exception for building contracts exceeding £5k in value - which will hardly cover anything!
Is suing an insolvent company really an option? Could I issue a Stat Demand for instance? I would really rather not be employing Solicitors as this whole affair has cost me so much already.
Thanks

dacouch

Do you have an Office Type Insurance for your business eg covering your desks and computers or memebership to a trade federation. If so they often include free legal advice.

infoseeker2014

dacouch wrote: »

Do you have an Office Type Insurance for your business eg covering your desks and computers or memebership to a trade federation. If so they often include free legal advice.

Thanks. Yes, I had a free legal helpline through my household insurance. I think it's probably useful if you've got a run-of-the-mill case where they can apply a check list approach. However, in this instance they were stumped!
Best.
infoseeker2014

dacouch

infoseeker2014 wrote: »

Thanks. Yes, I had a free legal helpline through my household insurance. I think it's probably useful if you've got a run-of-the-mill case where they can apply a check list approach. However, in this instance they were stumped!
Best.
infoseeker2014

That's because the people you spoke to specialise in domestic law, you need to speak to the commercial law specialists found on your commercial insurance or through your membership to FMB

infoseeker2014

dacouch wrote: »

That's because the people you spoke to specialise in domestic law, you need to speak to the commercial law specialists found on your commercial insurance or through your membership to FMB

Thanks. I don't have any commercial links, as it's the Builder that belongs (belonged, before resigning!) to the FMB.

Hopefully the OR can be persuaded to make a claim, although I hold out little hope.
Regards

dacouch

Oh sorry I thought from your first post that it was a business to business contract.

Did you pay for Domestic Legal Protection Cover?

If so does it date from before the building work started?

Does it include contract disputes and when did the building problems present themselves (Some policies require you to notify them within a certain period)

infoseeker2014

dacouch wrote: »

Oh sorry I thought from your first post that it was a business to business contract.

Did you pay for Domestic Legal Protection Cover?

If so does it date from before the building work started?

Does it include contract disputes and when did the building problems present themselves (Some policies require you to notify them within a certain period)

My existing Domestic Legal Cover is not interested due to the £value exceeding their limits (the £5k I mentioned earlier). The builder themselves carried a significant amount of insurance through both the FMB and Trustmark schemes. However,this is turning out to be of little value if it relies on the builder "playing ball" for the customer to actually be able to make a claim. Deeply unsatisfactory, in my opinion.
Cheers