Home insurance advice needed please

TFoster

Hello all,

Advice needed please.

On 30th January, a car crashed into our family home, finishing with the bonnet in our front room. My 8 year old son was in the front room at the time (7am) and it was only due to the large and extremely heavy cast iron radiator (which was snapped in the crash) that was in the bay window that the result of this accident was not far worse. (Whilst mostly unharmed, he is extremely scared and angry, and no longer able to sleep in his own bed, suffering frequent nightmares, and missing large amounts of school)

Following the accident, we were in emergency accommodation for 2 weeks, whilst the building was made safe and the heating/hot water was repaired as the broken radiator caused the boiler to stop working.

We moved back into our home in mid-February, but with the front portion obviously unusable.

2 months on, our home is still in exactly the same position. We have 5 acro-props supporting the upper floor (my husband and I's bedroom), we have boarding inside and out to make the house secure, the front room is cold, dark and dusty, which blows into the rest of the house.

We have 3 children, 8, 10 and 12 who have been extremely and understandably upset by what has happened, which as a result is affecting all areas on home and school life.

We are ringing and emailing our loss adjuster almost every day, but they are not at all good at responding.

Each day when our children come home from school, the first thing they see when coming through the front door is the seriously cracked inner wall between our hallway and sitting room, followed by the cold dark sitting room, before they are into the part of the house we are living in. They are frightened.

My question is, can we claim for the upset and inconvenience of living like this? If so, how do we go about it and what type of claim is it when I speak to the insurance company?

Our underwriters are Axa.

We are a strong family, but this is pushing us to the absolute limit and any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Dangermac

TFoster wrote: »

Hello all,

Advice needed please.

On 30th January, a car crashed into our family home, finishing with the bonnet in our front room. My 8 year old son was in the front room at the time (7am) and it was only due to the large and extremely heavy cast iron radiator (which was snapped in the crash) that was in the bay window that the result of this accident was not far worse. (Whilst mostly unharmed, he is extremely scared and angry, and no longer able to sleep in his own bed, suffering frequent nightmares, and missing large amounts of school)

Following the accident, we were in emergency accommodation for 2 weeks, whilst the building was made safe and the heating/hot water was repaired as the broken radiator caused the boiler to stop working.

We moved back into our home in mid-February, but with the front portion obviously unusable.

2 months on, our home is still in exactly the same position. We have 5 acro-props supporting the upper floor (my husband and I's bedroom), we have boarding inside and out to make the house secure, the front room is cold, dark and dusty, which blows into the rest of the house.

We have 3 children, 8, 10 and 12 who have been extremely and understandably upset by what has happened, which as a result is affecting all areas on home and school life.

We are ringing and emailing our loss adjuster almost every day, but they are not at all good at responding.

Each day when our children come home from school, the first thing they see when coming through the front door is the seriously cracked inner wall between our hallway and sitting room, followed by the cold dark sitting room, before they are into the part of the house we are living in. They are frightened.

My question is, can we claim for the upset and inconvenience of living like this? If so, how do we go about it and what type of claim is it when I speak to the insurance company?

Our underwriters are Axa.

We are a strong family, but this is pushing us to the absolute limit and any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Sorry to hear about this situation. Sounds awful.

There are two issues here:

1. Getting repairs done. If things are not progressing quickly enough, you should complain to your insurer, AXA.

If your house is not safely or practically habitable, you should speak with AXA about temporary accommodation.

2. Compensation. You may be entitled to compensation from the vehicle insurer for psychological distress and the like.

Unlikely you will get anything/much simply for 'upset / inconvenience'

Your AXA Household policy may contain Legal Expenses insurance to assist you with this.

But to be clear, this claim is not against AXA. It's against the negligent party.


Hope this helps

DM

pramsay13

+1 for complaining to your insurer.
We had a similar issue with an escape of water claim that rendered our kitchen pretty much unusable and the loss adjusters was a nightmare.
We complained to the insurer and asked that they recall the claim and deal with it direct which they happily did and very efficiently progressed the claim.
They offered us a small amount of money to apologise for the length of time that the claim had taken to complete which I was happy to accept.