No home and insurance uncontactable - help

FrustrationFull

Hi all,

I will try to keep this as short and sweet as it seems to be an ongoing saga. We bought out first house in January this year and spent 5 months doing diy to make it our own. We went away to a caravan for a weekend at the start of june and came back to discover that the downstairs toilet sink pipe had burst, flooded the entire ground floor and because it was hot water the damage from condensation upstairs was significant. We contacted our insurance company straight away and the humidity measurement was 89%. Obviously we couldnt stay there and we are extremely fortunate that my partners dad and partner have allowed us to move in with them.

Initially our insurance company (churchill) were fantastic, organising the removal of our furniture, installing a dryer upstairs (but not downstairs as they had to remove asbestos tiles before they could install the dryer downstairs). We organised this ourselves and i understand this will have delayed things slightly. The asbestos was removed 4 weeks ago, and they only installed the dryers downstairs last week. The guys who came to install those advised that once the wallpaper and skirting boards are removed they will revisit and hopefully declare the house dry so that work can begin on the property. However, the company who are supposed to remove these are impossible to contact. The number i have for them sends me to a general reception who just fob me off and claim they have had no information from our insurers to confirm which walls need stripping (i have had confirmation several times that this has been sent to them).

I understand completely that the house wont dry overnight, but we are now well into our 10th week out of our home, having been initially given a timeline of 4-6 weeks to dry the house and 6-8 weeks work to repair the damage. Its just so disheartening to be sent round in circles knowing that work wont begin until this company decide to book a visit to our house. We both work full time and are relying on work flexibility and our parents to let people into the house as our neighbours are always out.

Can anyone give me some advise how to hurry things up? Im at my wits end and right now am stressing that we wont be able to spend our first christmas together in our home. ...To make things worse, we are due to bring a puppy home at the end of november and this is reliant on being back in the house.

Any advise will be greatly appreciated!

rs65

FrustrationFull wrote: »

However, the company who are supposed to remove these are impossible to contact. The number i have for them sends me to a general reception who just fob me off and claim they have had no information from our insurers to confirm which walls need stripping

Speak to Churchill - its their claim.

FrustrationFull

rs65 wrote: »

Speak to Churchill - its their claim.

Churchill are passing me to the loss adjustor but he wont reply to any calls or emails. Likewise with the other companies they put the jobs out to.

agrinnall

I'm rather surprised that you need to ask when the answer given by rs65 was so obvious, but perhaps you just felt the need to get it all off your chest, which is fine, so if that is the case I hope it's helped relieve the stress for a while.

Cross posted with your reply, but I think the answer is still the same, speak to the dog!

rs65

FrustrationFull wrote: »

Churchill are passing me to the loss adjustor but he wont reply to any calls or emails. Likewise with the other companies they put the jobs out to.

So neither the contractors (several) nor the loss adjuster are replying to you?

Put in a complaint to Churchill - its their claim.

TSx

I've seen these types of claim before where nothing seems to be progressing (unfortunately).

Here's what I'd do from tomorrow

- Ring the insurer - tell them that you need to speak to someone about the problems you're having, but you cannot get through to the loss adjuster and need them to take responsibility as they are dealing with the claim.

- If they say they need to call you back or review the file (it will be different for different companies how they do this) agree a timescale there and then - if ringing early in the morning, I would insist on a callback within 6 hours which should be enough to get something done. Even if the loss adjuster isn't available, they should be able to speak to the suppliers who are involved and ultimately, any decisions rest with Churchill

- If they advise that a complaint needs logging or that a complaints handler needs to deal with it or anything like that, or if they say that the loss adjuster will have to deal with it, tell them that is their issue, but you want a resolution to your problem today and to know exactly what is happening. Escalate to a manager if needed.

- The key to this is being a nuisance. It's very unbritish to bother people and a lot of people feel awkward being a nuisance - Churchill will be paying the loss adjuster a significant sum to deal with the claim (hundreds of pounds) - the last thing a claims handler wants is to be spending time dealing with you because the loss adjuster isn't doing their job properly. Hassle them - if they (be it Churchill, a contractor or the loss adjuster) say they'll do something but don't, ring Churchill every time. Always get them to commit to a timescale for calling you back and you should never put up with an excuse of waiting for the adjuster to be available, or waiting for a file handler to be available.

- Once you've got the ball rolling and they're dealing with things, ask them to make sure they are logging a formal complaint as you'd like a response to the terrible service you've had in writing, and may take it to the financial ombudsman. This should ensure that someone takes your complaint seriously going forward - the only reason I don't recommend doing this immediately is because if there is a separate complaints team involved, this can sometimes slow down the handling of the claim because someone new has to become familiar with the claim.

Hopefully this will work - persistence is absolutely key though - but always remain calm, polite and even friendly. I'm not sure how claim ownership works in Churchill but hopefully you'll reach someone who takes ownership of the problems and just gets it sorted for you - and if you don't, keep calling back!

FutureGirl

Your claim could be being dealt with one of 2 teams. I believe it'll the technical team that has claim ownership, but they're only open 9am to 5pm. You should complain to your claims handler about the issues you're having. When you log a complaint the handler will have 3 days to resolve it and, if they can't, it'll go to the complaints team.

The loss adjustor and the contractor will communicate via an external system, and once the contractor has submitted their quote, the loss adjuster then have to approve that quote. If you're not happy with the contractor, ask loss adjuster to put another contractor on the file.

EdGasket

We had similar problems after a house fire. The insurer appoints a third-party company to 'manage' the claim. Then the fun starts because the insurer doesn't talk to the claims company and the claims company don't talk to the builders. So I, (you) have to ring up the insurer to tell them to talk to claims company. Then ring up claims company to make sure they have been spoken to. Then ring up builder, oh no they can't do anything, haven't got authorisation. Then back to the claims company to tell them to talk to the builder. It was 18 months to 2 years before repairs were finished. I sincerely hope it's better for you but the only solution is to ring up everyone every day to make sure they are all singing from the same sheet; or even singing at all!