Home Insurance - Emergency cover

rrankin546

I am currently with admiral and have platinum cover for my home which is purchased in October 2020. With the purchase of the property came a "gas safety certificate dated "29th August 2020. The boiler broke yesterday, so I called admiral who sent out an engineer to check it. It turned out that it was beyond repair and the engineer thought that it never should have been marked as safe on last inspection due to a number of issues.

According to admirals policy, if there had been a problem with any parts, they would replace these up to the value of £500, however since the boiler needs replaced they will pay absolutely nothing!
 
I feel like I should be due some compensation either from the vendor, insurance company, or the company that certified the boiler 5 months ago.

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this situation? 

davidmcn

I would suggest you get a second opinion before deciding whether to pursue the insurers.

I presume the vendor got the gas safety certificate rather than you? I can't see you have any remedy - besides, a safety certificate just means that it was safe on the day, not that it wasn't about to conk out (in the same way that cars can struggle their way through an MOT months before they get scrapped).

Retiredwelshman

The gas safety certificate has a date on it - your appliance is only safe on that date - unless it states otherwise.
The vendor - unless he/she was a gas safety engineer cannot be held responsible unless they lied on the form that they completed and sent to your solicitor prior to completion. It worked for them and worked for you for 5 months - so I think that avenue is closed to you.
The insurance company will only pay out according to the terms of the policy - pay up to £500 is that; for new parts not to you as compo.

Approach the situation - maybe get a local plumber to look at it for you (just to confirm that it is really knackered) - these big companies may not always tell the whole truth if it is a big job to get it going again - they won't be able to charge large fees to the insurance company - just what they have agreed when they signed up to work for them. 

I purchased my house 10 years ago - the question about boiler said something to the effect that they could not comment (it was not tested as part of the house purchase survey) - so I have kept £2000 in an account ready for when it would have to be replaced - guess what it's still going strong!

rrankin546

Thank you for your responses. I have already got a second opinion from a local gas registered engineer and he came to the same conclusion that replacement is the only way due to the severeness of the issues. What I don't understand is that the insurance company will pay £500 towards the cost to replace parts and labor, but nothing at all towards replacement. I don't understand why they won't pay anything towards this.

Thank you again for your help, I don't think I will have any leg to stand on and will just have to suck it up and take the hit this time.

davidmcn

rrankin546 said:

What I don't understand is that the insurance company will pay £500 towards the cost to replace parts and labor, but nothing at all towards replacement. I don't understand why they won't pay anything towards this.

That's how these sorts of plans usually work - which is one of the reasons why they're not a great money-saving option. Better just to keep your money in the bank until the occasions when you need to get work done.

pinkteapot

davidmcn said:

rrankin546 said:

What I don't understand is that the insurance company will pay £500 towards the cost to replace parts and labor, but nothing at all towards replacement. I don't understand why they won't pay anything towards this.

That's how these sorts of plans usually work - which is one of the reasons why they're not a great money-saving option. Better just to keep your money in the bank until the occasions when you need to get work done.

Like all insurance it's a gamble. In our last house the boiler was original (~25 years old). Over four years our Home Emergency cover paid for it to be repaired on three separate occasions, so more than paid for itself! (Especially as, with most insurers at least, Home Emergency claims don't count as home insurance claims so aren't declared when buying your next policy). Surprised our insurer kept offering us the cover.

We're now in a new-build and I'm not sure why I kept Home Emergency on our cover as it's much less likely we'll use it. But it's cheap and I like the peace of mind that when there's a disaster in the middle of the night, the insurer will find a trade to send out and I won't be randomly ringing people from Yellow Pages in the desperate hope of finding someone who's (a) available and (b) not going to rip us off. That's where I think the cover is nice to have. 

davidmcn

pinkteapot said:

davidmcn said:

rrankin546 said:

What I don't understand is that the insurance company will pay £500 towards the cost to replace parts and labor, but nothing at all towards replacement. I don't understand why they won't pay anything towards this.

That's how these sorts of plans usually work - which is one of the reasons why they're not a great money-saving option. Better just to keep your money in the bank until the occasions when you need to get work done.

I like the peace of mind that when there's a disaster in the middle of the night, the insurer will find a trade to send out and I won't be randomly ringing people from Yellow Pages in the desperate hope of finding someone who's (a) available and (b) not going to rip us off. That's where I think the cover is nice to have. 

My experience is that they won't necessarily even "find a trade to send out" though (eg in the middle of a big freeze when they're prioritising more vulnerable customers/more serious problems). In which case I'd prefer to find somebody who can actually turn up, rather than feel obliged to wait for the people I've already paid for.

In general, I like to keep insurance for the stuff I genuinely couldn't afford, rather than "gamble" with the lower value stuff. 

Sandtree

Home Emergency insurance is intended to get you out of a bind and not either a general maintenance contract nor one to effect permanent solutions/make good repairs etc.

If the policywording states their limit is £500 of repairs and no cover for replacement then you have nothing against the insurer as your second opinion has confirmed the situation of it being BER

I'm certainly no gas engineer but I would imagine that a gas SAFETY certificate is exactly the same as an MOT. It is not the equivalent of a service and doesnt warrant that the appliance is going to be reliable only that it is safe and only that it was safe on the day it was inspected. A car can be an absolute lemon on its last legs but fly through its MOT because the safety features are all fine.

As you didnt instruct the company to do the gas safety certificate trying to attach any liability to them would be difficult as they don't owe you a duty of care to do their work diligently but the person that instructed them.

If you want to consider any claim against the vendor then speak to the solicitor that did the conveyancing for you; house sales are generally "bought as seen", hence why you get a survey done or get things checked by experts before buying, and you only really have recourse if you can demonstrate they intentionally gave you wrong information in the materials provided or the responses to questions.