Start of a Subsidence Claim - Will It Be A Nightmare?

Fiscardo

We are at the start of a subsidence claim and have no idea what to expect or what we should be entitled to. I'm just wondering if any people with prior experience may be able to provide some pointers so we have some idea of whether ourinsurance company are playing the game or wriggling out of things?
Better start at the beginning.........Around 29 December a very noisy night in the house, a lot of cracking noises which I thought was probably just heating and cooling of the pipes etc as weather was cooler than usual.  However, next morning to our dismay we noticed a large crack in a downstairs wall and a couple of doors would not close.We also had extensiv ehairline cracks in all ceilings. It was obviouse our house had moved somewhat and my immediate thought was subsidence.  I called Aviva, our insurer who said that we could not asssume we had subsidence and would need to get an engineer to look at it before thay could do anything.  I called a structural engineer who came out immediately, he reassured us that our house was structurally safe and not about to suffer a catastrophic collapse. He recommended a few bore holes be dug around the house - he'd arrange this to happen within the next week.  We heard nothing more from Aviva and I was becoming concerned that we were proceeding on our own with no input from them. The helpful lady during the second call confirmed that my first call had been loggged but no notes had been made.  She said that as the first lady had told me to get an engineer to look that they would have to pay for this but to put the drilling on hold until their engineers had looked at photos we should send.  So, we delayed the drilling appointment and sent a set of photos of the damage. This had become worse by now as we seemed to have suffered a second slip.  A few days went by so we called Aviva again, this time the lady said that their engineers had just sent an email to me which was probably still in the system - she told me verbally that the photos did not confirm subsidence and that we needed to send a photo showing a floor to ceiling crack or an engineers report confirming subsidence. Although things had worsened, we had no more dramatic photos so went ahead and instructed geosurvey to proceed.  A week or so later we recieved a detailed report confirming subsidence and outlining that there did not seem to be a drain at fault but that we had 80cm of soft sand under our foundations and that the undusually high rainfall in our normally dry area (Norfolk) had caused some of this to be eroded. The recommendation was concrete underpinning to the front and side of out property.  We live in a semi, and our neighbours are equally affected so the engineer shared the cost of the drilling and wrote a separate report for each house. Our neighbours have a different insurance company.  Once we sent our report confirming the subsidence issue- we were handed over to another company - Innovation Group.  I am not quite sure of their relationship with Aviva but suspect their mission may be to reduce Aviva's cost as a priority over fixing our problem?
We received a bill from our structural engineer for £1,400 pounds - I sent this to Innovation Group who replied that they would consider this once their inspector had confirmed subsidence.  Seemed slightly confusing, as the very report, from a highly qualified and respected firm of structural engineers had confirmed and discovered the reason for our subsidence?  
Innovation Group then said they would send an inspector - unfortunatley we had to wait around 3 weeks for this. In the meantime our neighbours company sent an engineer, refunded the cost of the survey and did some interim repairs to stop draughts coming through the gaps in the walls and skirting.
The inspector / engineer from Innovation duly arrived and took mor photos and video etc.  The same day he confirmed in writing that he suspected subsidence and that he would initiate a drain survey and some further drilling. He also said that we would need some monitering equipment fitted in order to detect any further movement.  Once we had sent a copy of our pre purchase survey confirming no prior evidence of subsidence, we received an email confirming we are covered and requesting our payment of the excess of £1,000.  This, I know is normal, but I am concerned that despite a follow up request for the refund of the £1,400 survey bill, there has been no reply.
Should I be worried?  I have read a couple of negative articles regarding Innovation Group - does anyone here have any experience of such a claim?
Sorry for the lenght of this but if anyone has any advice to offer, this would be gratefully received.

Sandtree

Subsidence claims are frequently long and involve a lot of monitoring and testing. 

I am a little confused why you instructed a structural engineer? Whilst its the norm that an insurer would want such a report if the damage points to potential issue its the norm for them to appoint their own.

I've no experience of Innovation Group but have worked with other TPA firms; their role is to ensure an appropriate claims settlement is made... they work for the insurer however that doesn't mean the bottom line is everything to them... for a start with most of these types of arrangements the amount they get paid is based on the settled value and so as an organization, in the short term at least, they'll generate more fees by agreeing higher settlements. How long they keep the contract if they keep overpaying claims to increase fees is naturally the balancing point.

Given you have an outstanding cost that exceeds the excess I would certainly discuss them offsetting the excess against that head of claim.

Fiscardo

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply
The reason we engaged a structural engineer was due to the fact that during the initial call to Aviva, we were told that we'd need an engineers report before we could proceed.  Perhaps this was a misunderstanding and the lady meant that Avive would send an engineer but there was no offer of this or further advice?  The structural engineer himself thought this a bit odd.
As I mentioned, 2nd call to Aviva generated an offer to send photos. Once they had the photos, the response was that they did not provide sufficient indication of subsidence, so we'd need pictures showing more extreme cracks or an engineers report. It therefore seemed we had no choice but to proceed on our own, at least initially.

AnnaKDog

Hi there, I was wondering how this has been going?  Thanks so much x 

Fiscardo

Hello,
Work is still in progress.  Innovations agreed to underpin the house but not as extensively as advised by our own engineer.  House was then monitored for 6 months to sheck if this had been effective and foundations now stable. Monitoring indicated that we still had movement so another visit from Geobear to pump in more foam. Still not as extinsively as I would have liked but subsequent monitoring now suggests the house is now stable.
Visited by loss adjuser from Innovations in June to inspect and agree on repairs to the building. A bit of a fight as they are obviously looking to minimise expenditure as much as possible. Particular worry is sloping downstairs floors . They finally agreed to try and fix the worst of these. Work now scheduled to start on 16 October and will take 6 to 7 weeks.  Let's see how it goes!

fghi

Dear Fiscado I am very very interested to hear about your problems with Aviv and innovations! We are now in the fourth year of trying to get our house underpinned! We too got an engineer to come and give their opinion. They said it was subsidence and that it needed concrete underpinning! Aviva rejected his report and said we did not even have subsidence! We had to fight for two years and appeal to the ombudsman who ordered them to fix our subsidence! Now we are dealing full time with Innovations who have done to us EXACTLY what they have done to you. Told us we don’t need full concrete underpinning and instead are insisting that GEOBEAR will do the job perfectly !! It clearly is just a money saving policy that they pursue and they are clearly NOT trying to address the problem with our best interests at heart!!! I would love to hear everything and from everyone else that has/is experiencing dealing with Innovation and Thames Water over subsidence I don’t believe they are interested in actually fixing our problem they are robbing us off with GEOBEAR!! They have isolated us and are trying to bully us into submission!!!

Bluntington88

Hi Fiscaldo, we are 3 years into a subsidence claim,  insured by AXA and loss adjusters are Crawfords. It is an ongoing battle still being fought.
We have had over 2 years of movement monitoring at fixed points to establish there is seasonal movement on clay soil with a large oak within 10 meters of the house. We didn’t get a structural engineer involved ourselves until we got to the point where the tree reduction hadn’t worked and the LA refused tree removal as it has a TPO (by this point we didn’t want it removed either after having read about heave). This took about 18 months.
Since then we have had a  SE who has twice  confirmed that underpinning is required in original and updated reports.
Crawfords are now saying it will use Optera tree root barrier treatment (an approx £66,000 cheaper job than underpinning).Crawfords are often unhelpful and threatening in their communication. 
We have put in an official complaint to AXA and are anticipating we might have to get Financial Ombudsman involved after that complaint  has achieved nothing. 
My advice would be to create a paper file of all correspondence, summarise any calls with a follow-up email, research the FOS website under subsidence to find upheld claims that are similar to your situation to help you understand what is judged to be unacceptable by the FOS. 
Happy to answer further questions if you need any more advice. 

Fiscardo

fghi said:

Told us we don’t need full concrete underpinning and instead are insisting that GEOBEAR will do the job perfectly !! It clearly is just a money saving policy that they pursue and they are clearly NOT trying to address the problem with our best interests at heart!!! 

Sorry, I thought I replied to this yesterday. Obviously didn't press "Post Coment"

As far as I can gather, the method used by Geobear is now more commonly used foundation repair technology.  This has replaced the old concrete method which slow disruptive, and expensive.

Probably the old method was better but I did some research and noted that Geobear are used by local councils etc, so must be OK?!

My particualr gripe was that Innovations were not willing to "underpin" as many of our walls as our independant engineer had recommended.  Obviously a cost cutting execise and one that backfired. Monitoring showed that our house was still moving, so further injections were require

Fiscardo

Bluntington88 said:

Hi Fiscaldo, we are 3 years into a subsidence claim,  insured by AXA and loss adjusters are Crawfords. It is an ongoing battle still being fought.
We have had over 2 years of movement monitoring at fixed points to establish there is seasonal movement on clay soil with a large oak within 10 meters of the house. We didn’t get a structural engineer involved ourselves until we got to the point where the tree reduction hadn’t worked and the LA refused tree removal as it has a TPO (by this point we didn’t want it removed either after having read about heave). This took about 18 months.
Since then we have had a  SE who has twice  confirmed that underpinning is required in original and updated reports.
Crawfords are now saying it will use Optera tree root barrier treatment (an approx £66,000 cheaper job than underpinning).Crawfords are often unhelpful and threatening in their communication. 
We have put in an official complaint to AXA and are anticipating we might have to get Financial Ombudsman involved after that complaint  has achieved nothing. 
My advice would be to create a paper file of all correspondence, summarise any calls with a follow-up email, research the FOS website under subsidence to find upheld claims that are similar to your situation to help you understand what is judged to be unacceptable by the FOS. 
Happy to answer further questions if you need any more advice. 

Hello and Sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations.

It's a shame it is such a battle to make a justifiable claim against an insurance policy. Almost a scandal that these household name companies can sell us policies which they say will cover against these eventualities and then hand us over to shady operators Innovations / Crawfords etc, whose aim is to reduce the cost and scopes of work as much as possible.
I hope that we don't suffer another subsidence issue in the future, but if we did, I think I'd look to engage an independant structural engineer for the duration of the claim.  Please correct me but I believe the insurance company is obliged to pay for this. Something not made initally apparent for obviouse reasons!

Bluntington88

Hi again, I paid for the SE reports. Crawfords would not pay as they said their own experts’ advice was all the required. I think you would  be very lucky to get SE costs refunded voluntarily. However, I have found it very worthwhile to have the same SE available when needed who had a strong, ongoing knowledge of the Claim. 
Good luck. Maybe I’ll get back to you if Crawfirds suggest Geobear next! 

Fiscardo

I think you should check with the ombudsman. 
As mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Aviva reimbursed us for our structural engineers report. They certainly would not have done this if they didn't have to!
I have a feeling that insurance company is legally obliged to pay this.
This is why I regret not retaining the SE to oversea complete job.
Loss adjusted often say no to a claim. If you accept this without question, they win. If you object and they have to pay, well, they lost nothing by trying. This is why they employ slightly bullying techniques.