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

Annemos

I know as a rule, that if the technical advice that the homeowner receives from their own Structural Engineer etc, differs from that of the Insurance Expert....  and the homeowner's is the method that is ultimately used. Then the FOS rules that the Insurance Company should bear the cost of the home-owner's experts. 

I had three of mine paid for, once I had gone to the FOS. (That two trees should come down and not one which they had said.      That the repairs were shoddy.... Insurance had said they were great!       That the redone repairs were still shoddy......  Insurance said they were great again and furthermore, the best repairs they had ever seen!)

Annemos

Here is Geobar. They dealt with an Oak Tree!  

https://www.geobear.co.uk/project/property-stabilised-after-subsidence-caused-by-oak-tree/www.geobear.co.uk

And this one was also tree-related....

https://www.geobear.co.uk/project/house-subsidence-caused-by-trees/



(I had a look at their website, as I did not know they also also did Tree Root cases.

I had assumed their polymer injection techniques were for voids under a property, if the soil had washed away, eg through drain leaks.) 

DGgriff

I’ve had the unfortunate experience of having to deal with Innovation Group since 2017 as the subsidence claim managers for Aviva. It’s been an utter nightmare and is still not resolved. One of the problems is that over 7 years I must have dealt with 20 different Innovation personnel handling my claim and I don’t think any of them ever get fully up to speed on the claim and have a good overview. I could write a book about their appalling service and may have to if I end up appealing to the FOS, which may be inevitable, but I’ve been trying to avoid. I don’t want to think that their behaviour, attitude and service may suit Aviva’s ends but it has to be a possibility. I’m now in a position where I’m going to have to appoint my own professionals to deal with the matter and the lesson learned is that I should have done this back in 2017 but at the time my first contact was with an Aviva assessor and I was encouraged that all would be dealt with satisfactorily.

Annemos

DGgriff. Very sorry to read this. Has it been established what the cause of the Subsidence actually is? Has crack or level monitoring been done? Has the cause of Subsidence been removed? What stage do you seem to be stuck at? 

The only think I can suggest, is to try to do some research of FOS cases. Do a search in the "keyword" box to find ones that closely match your own facts and circumstances relating to Subsidence. (Remember to also check the box for "Insurance excluding PPI".)


I found this process so useful, because it helped me with the correct terminology to use. And also gave me a lot of information about what the FOS expects an Insurance Company to be doing. 

So the cases were all a great help when I had to draft my own FOS Complaint. 

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/ombudsman-decisions

Bluntington88

Hi DGgriff, I have a subsidence complaint lodged with the FOS currently. Here’s my advice:
* date, time and get name of everyone you speak to. Frequent changes of call- handler can be part of your complaint as well as unreasonable slays in reply eg 4-6 weeks plus is unreasonable.
* get on record request for monitoring of the property with tree root investigation if applicable 
* pay for your own structural engineer’s report - worthwhile as it will have a detailed site visit and response to any available monitoring data produced by the Insurer/loss-adjuster. 
All the best - don’t hesitate to get back with any further queries I might be able to help with.