Process of house insurance claim?

hieveryone

Well it doesn't rain it pours doesn't it. 

Had a (very) small pipe leak in my en-suite bathroom which has caused chaos in my house. The damage control company said most likely my en-suite will need ripped out including floor and shower, and half of my kitchen downstairs. 

I've never claimed on this kind of scale before. What can I expect with regards to replacing items/redoing the bathroom etc? Whilst it's out I'd probably like to make some changes to the bathroom as we would have done eventually anyway, how would I go about this? 

Do the insurance company just offer you £x amount to settle and then leave you to source the work yourselves? Or do they hand you brochures of their approved trades and get you to choose? 

Thanks

csgohan4

The key question is, will the claim succeed. The insurers will not cover anything that has happened over time, from the cheapest to the most expensive this will be the same. 

There's trace and access policy assuming you have, will identify the leak for you and help with that, in terms of repairs, that is less clear cut. 

Did this happen over night or was a gradual incident?

Smithcom

csgohan4 said:

The key question is, will the claim succeed. The insurers will not cover anything that has happened over time, from the cheapest to the most expensive this will be the same. 

There's trace and access policy assuming you have, will identify the leak for you and help with that, in terms of repairs, that is less clear cut. 

Did this happen over night or was a gradual incident?

This is not the case (unless the claimant had known about the problem for some time), and there is Financial Ombudsman Service case history on this - see https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/files/147996/DRN5852191.pdf     
It's true that policies exclude 'gradually operating causes' but this is very unlikely to be classed as such.
More important to check if the policy include Trace & Access cover since it sounds like this will make up a big chunk of the claim.

csgohan4

Smithcom said:

csgohan4 said:

The key question is, will the claim succeed. The insurers will not cover anything that has happened over time, from the cheapest to the most expensive this will be the same. 

There's trace and access policy assuming you have, will identify the leak for you and help with that, in terms of repairs, that is less clear cut. 

Did this happen over night or was a gradual incident?

This is not the case (unless the claimant had known about the problem for some time), and there is Financial Ombudsman Service case history on this - see https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/files/147996/DRN5852191.pdf     
It's true that policies exclude 'gradually operating causes' but this is very unlikely to be classed as such.
More important to check if the policy include Trace & Access cover since it sounds like this will make up a big chunk of the claim.

will depend on the interpretation by the insurer. There have been threads on here where insurers have rejected on the basis of it happening over time. Not all leaks are instant, some can be slow. It is not always black and white

Smithcom

csgohan4 said:

Smithcom said:

csgohan4 said:

The key question is, will the claim succeed. The insurers will not cover anything that has happened over time, from the cheapest to the most expensive this will be the same. 

There's trace and access policy assuming you have, will identify the leak for you and help with that, in terms of repairs, that is less clear cut. 

Did this happen over night or was a gradual incident?

This is not the case (unless the claimant had known about the problem for some time), and there is Financial Ombudsman Service case history on this - see https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/files/147996/DRN5852191.pdf     
It's true that policies exclude 'gradually operating causes' but this is very unlikely to be classed as such.
More important to check if the policy include Trace & Access cover since it sounds like this will make up a big chunk of the claim.

will depend on the interpretation by the insurer. There have been threads on here where insurers have rejected on the basis of it happening over time. Not all leaks are instant, some can be slow. It is not always black and white

Indeed.  Many/most leaks happen over time.   If the policyholder had no knowledge of the leak, policy cover should (hopefully) not be an issue, albeit none of us are in a position to be definitive.
I would stongly recommend that you review the FOS cases studies on this type of claim.

Lavolta

We have just been in a very similar situation.  We received an offer from the insurance company which was really low, so we got quotes for the remedial work ourselves.  They accepted the quotes and gave us a payout to the same value, but without the VAT.  They would only pay the VAT once we proved we'd got the work done and submitted receipts.  They don't seem to care whether we spend the money on the remedial work or not, other than the VAT issue.

Tracytop81

Hi, I am in a similar situation. I can't answer your question but can tell you what has happened at mine so far. I had been away for a week in Feb and came home to find water pouring through two bedroom ceilings upstairs and then through my hall and lounge ceilings, which had brought down some of the ceiling plaster. Things progressed really fast initially . The next day an emergency plumber attended and found the leak to be under the bath panel in a bathroom in the loft conversion which he fixed. And also an emergency electrician attended as all my sockets had tripped and light fittings and switches were soaked, he has switched off all the electric in my house as he said it was unsafe as my fuse boxes were drenched.
The insurance sent a loss adjuster to look at my house within a week. The loss adjuster did say that the likely outcome would be is that they would arrange all the stripping out and drying, then offer a cash settlement to put things back together, I wasn't sure what this was but he said that they would get quotes and then pay me the money to fix. 
The loss adjuster sent two companies to assess the damage to quote for drying out, they both attended within the first week. But that's where things have kind of stalled. It has been over a month now, and I still have no electric and the only drying out that has taken place so far is that one of the companies has been and removed the carpets and laminate flooring.
I had a surveyor attend last week who the loss adjuster has asked to quote for the reinstatement works (repairs?), and he said that unless they got a move on with the drying and stripping out then my house was only going to get a lot worse, and that he would write that caveat in his report.
So I can only say that from my experience it is a slow process. The two companies who attended initially for drying out and stripping out are again coming to my house this week as apparently they need to quote for more work? I'm not really sure what is happening as previously when they attended they both did the same thing - measure and take photos. They  attended separately before but this time they are attending together, so maybe that will help move things along?
This is the first time that I have ever needed to call my insurance company so I'm not sure if this slow progress is usual or if it's just my situation.
I have my fingers crossed that things run faster for you than they have for me!!!

Tracytop81

Lavolta said:

We have just been in a very similar situation.  We received an offer from the insurance company which was really low, so we got quotes for the remedial work ourselves.  They accepted the quotes and gave us a payout to the same value, but without the VAT.  They would only pay the VAT once we proved we'd got the work done and submitted receipts.  They don't seem to care whether we spend the money on the remedial work or not, other than the VAT issue.

Hi, hope you don't mind me asking, how long did it take for the insurance company to deal with your claim. I have had a water leak and things seem to be going very slowly. Just wondering if it's just me or if they all run slow?