Need advice on insurance for damage caused by neighbours fire

Chickenlips

There is no such thing as a monthly pay out limit. This is a complete fallacy. If your assessor has told you this I would suggest ending the contract and finding a reputable one. I'd suggest avoiding any that arenr FCA authorised in their own right (some go through umbrella companies... but, why? If they comply with the rules and truly care about the policyholder, why do they find ways to cheat the FCA system? Personally I think it is a huge red flag).

Have you failed to declare something about the building? Did you provide the wrong details? Are you letting out one of the rooms? Do you run a business from home?

Taking a couple of weeks to review and accept the claim isn't unusual (an adjuster can have up to a week to write their report). Is there anything that the adjuster could have discovered in your home that wasn't declared?

Unlimited building policies are rarely unlimited. Is your contents cover with the same company? Is it possible you are under insured on this section?

Keep a log of everything you have done (within reason) to mitigate the damage. A lack of decision isn't a valid excuse to let the house fall to ruin. If you didn't have cover youd do everything you can to prevent more damage as you'd be paying - your Insurer takes the same view and wouldn't pay for additional damage due to your inaction. You wouldn't be expected to stick a tin hat on the roof but if you can get a tarp over it you should.

Chickenlips

PS you catch more bees with honey not vinegar. They working with them instead of seeing them as your enemy. Speak to them and ask if you can do anything to help move it along and if they have any recommendations to reduce the secondary damage. Work with them not against them.

Adjusters get paid more for paying claims and the bigger the claim the more they get paid. Something worth considering and remembering.

People bend over backwards to help nice reasonable patient understanding people. Those that play the victim card and act entitled and complain arent always at the top of the must help list.

Get a copy of your policy and schedule, figure out what your cover is and if there are any potential issues.

I'm sure loads of people here would help you with that if you asked and you were nice about it.

Alternative accommodation cover only happens if your claim is covered. Your claim hasn't been accepted yet so you canny for alternative accommodation. If you feel your property is truly so bad it is uninhabitable you can fund your own accommodation and claim the costs back if/when it is accepted. If you are telling them it is so bad you can't live there but you're staying there until someone else foots the bill it sends mixed messages. It says "it isn't bad enough for me to incur costs but if someone else is paying I want out". Can you stay with friends and family?

Ask them if you can get accommodation on a without prejudice basis. It means you pay it back if the claim is turned down. But you don't think you've done anything that will cause it to be turned down so it isn't much of a gamble.

Manxman_in_exile

OP - thanks for responding to my thread about cover on a listed building.


I don't want to worry you, but you may be in for a long haul.


Some years ago a decorator working on one of our neighbouring houses (also one of our Grade II listed terrace) set light to the roof space using a blow torch to burn off external paintwork. That house was completely gutted as was the neighbouring house, and the fire almost spread to a third house in the terrace.


Emergency work (eg scaffolding and "tin hats") were erected almost immediately, but it took nearly two years before rebuilding was completed and the houses reoccupied. I understand one of the problems was finding contractors with the experience etc to rebuild a listed building (and presumably quite expensive with unlimited cover too) and the other problem was a dispute between the respective occupiers' insurers (we suspect the decorator was not insured).


Good luck.


(Oh - having that happen a few doors down made us review, and change, our buildings cover. We got better cover - and a Which? Best Buy provider - at just over half of what we were previously paying. Of course, we've not had to make a claim yet!)


EDIT: occupants got emergency accommodation straightaway as it was obvious the house was uninhabitable.

Manxman_in_exile

I don't know if anybody else has suggested this and, to be honest, I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not - others may be able to advise.


If you live in a Conservation Area, have you considered contacting your LA's Conservation Officer? I should imagine they would be very unhappy with your insurer. They might be relatively toothless, but they may be able to apply a little additional pressure.


Potential downsides might be 1. they may be unhappy with you unless you've made reasonable arrangements for emergency work yourself and 2. not sure if it may affect any subsequent appeal to FOS. See what other posters think.


As others have advised, it might be a good idea to bang in a formal complaint (not sure if email would suffice?) now so that if you get an unsatisfactory response you can save time and complain to the FOS more quickly.

littlerock

chickenlips: I don't know what you mean about a monthly payout limit for expenses?.where did I say that? I didn't even think it was available. What I said was the loss adjuster who visited, said he would normally be given delegated budgets to get things going and this had not happened in our case because the insurers had merely asked him to report back on this occasion.

We did indeed carry out mitigating works, at our own expense, including an electrical audit by a qualified electrician and patching up a hole in the now exposed party wall at roof level. We are waiting for a flying tin roof to be installed over our side from next door. (Lest you think I have invented this, we were visited by next doors loss adjusters to explain this to us.)

I phoned the insurers over a week ago to ask about why they had not yet accepted liability and opened budgets and they confirmed this usually happens. It had not in my case because my house was not the site of the fire, which was next door, and facts needed to be established. I accepted this. My buildings policy states quite specifically that the cover is unlimited. It also has a clause saying saying my policy has a £20k limit for alternative accommodation. I have sent a copy of the policy to the Loss Adjusters. My contents cover with a different insurer is for £135k . have also copied in the loss adjusters.

I am a woman of what would be called, legally, impeccable character. There is no suggestion we are renting out a room, running a business or anything like that or gaming our insurance in some way..

We started out with the best of faith in the insurers. We were initially told the loss adjusters report would be in by Tuesday, then it was Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday.. We were told it had been submitted today but still liability has not yet been accepted by the insurers.Meanwhile we are living in a smelly smoky house with the party wall and hall ceilings and floors drenched by hours of water from the firehoses. The stuff in our cellar floated in at least two feet of water. The house next door was on fire for hours and ours reeks of smoke. My partner has developed a cough.

Yet the adjuster called us yesterday saying as far as he was concerned, the house would be habitable after it was dried out and therefore he was not approving use of alternative accommodation. However drying out cannot start until the insurers accept liability and they have said they are awaiting the adjusters report before doing this. We are stuck in the middle.

In our area short term rental accommodation is not readily available, it usually has to be for a year and the only alternative are hotels which are around £120 night at this time of year. We have been waiting for the adjuster to authorise the use of "icab" but now this has not happened We have been specifically told the loss adjuster will not approve the use of alternative accommodation.

This is all very traumatic. Two weeks ago we were living quietly in our nice Victorian house and then out of the blue our neighbours house catches fire and burns for hours and ours is drenched in water. It is very distressing. Our insurers gave us very little advice or support nor did the loss adjusters. No one advised us of the process to expect. This is why we chose to use a loss assessor. (The one we chose is one of the best known and has a full complement of professional accreditations and awards for customer service). Nearly two weeks after the fire next door, our insurers have still to accept liability. Not it seems because we have done something underhand, as you suggest might be the case, but due to bureaucracy.

Not everyone is on the make. Not everyone is a chancer or a whinger. We are just a respectable elderly couple, who being fully insured and caught in a nightmare no fault situation after next doors fire, hoped to be treated with some understanding and respect at a difficult time.

Chickenlips

Please try to remember that the advice I am giving you is to help you. You do not need to be defensive. I am giving you the benefit of my tens years of experience working as a loss adjuster that deals with.... large fire claims!

If it was not recorded on the policy about the conservation area/listed building ect... that maybe the problem. Ot the cellar. Or something else entirely.

I am not saying you are not of good character. I am asking you questions to establish why there might be a delay.

Try phoning your Insurers and asking if there is anything you can do to help move things along. Try not to be pushy about the claim try to work with them.

I was referring to this: . I am starting to speculate they have a monthly pay out ceiling and I am knocking up against it and being put off or delayed until August.

Have you spoken to your contents insurers about alternative accommodation? There should be cover there too.

For accommodation to be agreed, they have to establish that your policy is valid and that your property is uninhabitable. Uninhabitable is more than inconvenience caused by soot ect. As I have said if it is that bad you would leave irrespective of cover and claim it back after.

No one is accusing you of being a chancer. I'm trying to figure out why there is a delay. You see in my experience Insurers will not want the value of the claim to go up and almost always agree to mitigating measures (like a tin hat) at the very start on a without prejudice basis. The fact that they haven't suggests they may think there is a reason to either decline the claim or void the policy.

The normal process is: claim submitted ---> loss adjusters appointed if it sounds complicated or expensive ---> visit arranged within five days of instructions ---> adjuter tells insurers it is a large loss and mitigating works are agreed on a without prejudice basis unles any issues arise with the policy ---> within five days of the visit report goes out ---> within two or three weeks of the report Insurers advise decision on cover (for the purposes of this we will assume they agreed) ---> disaster restoration company appointed for cleaning and possibly drying depending on roof (expect with contents as they go to your other insurers - always worth asking if they are happy to use the same firm) ---> Surveyor is appointed and drafts a schedule of works ---> works put out to tender ---> within four or five weeks the contractor will be agreed and a meeting held to agree the plan ----> usually a lead time of 2/4 weeks before works start (on a listed building this can be months as permission for the works can take up to three months to receive) ---> works begin and take around 10 or 12 weeks to complete---> final meeting held ---> snagging issues addressed ---> claim concluded.

Is your assessor fully FCA registered? What has he said about fees when you use your own trades?

Quentin

You keep referring to having an unlimited cover

You may be misunderstanding what unlimited cover means

It doesn't mean that your insurer can spend spend spend as there's an unlimited amount of money to call on!

littlerock

The contractors for the destroyed house were here the other day and want to put up a flying roof over their side (which has no roof) extending over ours. He said they would normally seek to share this with my insurer. I assume this cannot be agreed until liability for my claim has been accepted by my insurers. I am still waiting to hear this. The delay seemed to be in getting oout the lost adjusters report and deciding if it should be handled by as a major fire or general property loss. The ajduster told me yesterday they decided it should remain as a general property loss.

My insurance policy does not specify the type of building at all. Just says Buildings. Limit of cover (left blank) Sum Insured: Unlimited. My loss assessors are fully registered with relevant professional bodies.

Meanwhile it has been raining all night here, and new damp patches have appeared on and next to my party wall. I am concerned that if some of the damp plaster gets wetter it may start to fall off the ceiling, which is quite ornate.

I told the insurers' loss adjuster, when he visited 10 days ago, that we were a BTM in a Schedule 4 Conservation area and he said there would be no problem in approving lath and plaster ceiling repairs.

I am also concerned the more damp in the party wall might raise electricity safety issues. I already had the electricty tested after the firemen left the second time, but the new patch on our internal wall next to the party wall is worrying.

littlerock

What does unlimited mean in connection with sum insured in a home insurance policy?


Gareth Kloet, head of household at Confused.com replies: 'Usually when taking out a home insurance policy you have to specify certain values – i.e. the value of your contents or the rebuild value of your home.

"Most policies will have a limit put in place for the total amount you can cover your building or contents for but some policies offer an unlimited sum. This, simply put, means that they do not place a cap on the buildings/contents value that you wish to cover."

I am not trying for anything extra just for my house to be put back as it was before. It is now coming up a fortnight and my house is still damp and my claim has not been accepted because the adjusters report is not ready. As a result I have no serious drying fans in my house, just a few small domestic fans of my own. Plus it has been raining heavily for the last 24 hours and more damp is appearing from next door.

Quentin

That explains it correctly

It isn't anything to do with spend spend spend!

It just saves you having to calculate how much it would cost to replace all your insured items and property each time you renew your policy!