Paying excess to contractor rather than insurance company

Blackavar

Hi
My home insurance is with RIAS who, in the event of a claim immediately become Ageas, who then sub contact to Claims Consortium, who then provide a contractor to do the work.
I have an email from a company I've never heard of or has been mentioned before saying they will visit to carry out the work but need my £300 excess paid to them before work can commence,
Okay, old skool, I was expecting to pay RIAS my excess. Is this what happens now? 
We are bombarded by advice about how to avoid scams and this would be me paying £300 to a company who have never been mentioned to me by anyone.
So is it normal practice now to pay the contractor the insurance excess? 

davidmcn

Blackavar said:

I have an email from a company I've never heard of or has been mentioned before saying they will visit to carry out the work but need my £300 excess paid to them before work can commence,
We are bombarded by advice about how to avoid scams and this would be me paying £300 to a company who have never been mentioned to me by anyone.

That's not an entirely unreasonable concern - so ask your insurers to confirm it's the correct party you're dealing with. If it is though, I don't see what the problem is.

Sandtree

Its normal practice if insurer's contractors are doing the work that the excess is paid to them directly; no value in you paying it to your insurer and your insurers then paying it to the contractors 

TELLIT01

Paying the excess direct is not unusual.  Being told to pay it to a company you have never heard of is.  The OP is right to be cautious.  At best this is poor communication from the insurer, at worst it could be a scam.

Sandtree

TELLIT01 said:

Paying the excess direct is not unusual.  Being told to pay it to a company you have never heard of is.  The OP is right to be cautious.  At best this is poor communication from the insurer, at worst it could be a scam.

If it is a truly random company turning up asking for money then naturally... my reading of "never heard of" was that they'd never heard of them before the claims handlers told them that they'd be the ones coming around to repair the whatever 

Blackavar

Now resolved - Thanks for all input. My insurance company had advised Claims Consortium would contact me so no problem with that. Nobody advised me of the contractor's company name, had assumed Claims Consortium were the contractor. So when a new name emails me saying they need my excess paying into their account it rings alarm bells. So, as previously suggested just bad comms. I'm fairly certain that my concern was not really understood, least of all by my insurance company who failed to answer my email sent seven days ago. I just think in these times of internet hacking/fraud companies need to provide a clear audit trail to customers.

Annemos

My problem was worse than this.

My Loss Adjuster DID want me to pay the excess direct to the actual Contractors who were going to do the work! He even wrote that I had agreed to do that, which was certainly not the case. 

I kicked up a fuss about this and spoke to the intermediary company who acts between my insurer and the Loss Adjuster. (Basically the company that handles any complaints.) 

I said that I do not know anything about the Contractors, so why would I need to pay them direct? I also said that as far as I was concerned, my contract was to pay the excess to the Insurer. 

That lady kindly sorted it out with the Insurer and I ended up paying the excess direct to the Insurer.

This was very prophetic, because it turned out that the Contractors did the most substandard repair job you could ever imagine! 

Hence, the kind lady ended up dealing with that complaint  as well which was upheld and the Contractor AND the Loss Adjuster were removed from my claim. 

I can tell you, that I am absolutely relieved and happy, that not a single penny of my money went to that original Contractor!!

(Now waiting for the repairs to be re-done in Spring by the new folks when the weather is better.)

Annemos

This was 1000 pounds! 

2020sombre

how did you find dealing with the loss adjustor? mine has valued it far too low compared to quotes I am getting!
Apparently their contractors are fully booked until April! any advice?