House fire - what to expect re insurance claim

bluep

Had a fairly big fire in a room today when no-one was home that the fire brigage think was an electrical fault/extension lead. The insurance company is closed until tomorrow so I was just wondering what I should expect.  On the face of it, the policy has unlimited buildings and contents insurance (the only limit is for valuables and any one personal item) and it's a more "premium" insurance policy so should have more than enough cover.  Luckily the actual fire damage is limited to one room and not structural as it was caught early but the smoke damage is horrendous all throughout the house - carpets, curtains, walls, bedding, clothing.  Most of the house is black with soot.  Literally everything needs specialist cleaning.

Is it fairly normal for the insurers to agree to a professional cleaning team as we just don't have the capacity to even know where to begin with the smoke/soot damage?  The wallpaper/carpets/curtains were pretty high value (as in made curtains rather than bought on the high street) so the immediate rooms around the fire room will need redecoration.  Obviously they will send a loss adjuster round but is this usually quite speedy?

The other complicating factor was a relative was staying for a few weeks in between rental properties (not a rent paying tenant) - whilst most of their possessions were elsewhere, they did have a laptop and some clothing in the room where the fire was - again, the policy seems to cover this but I'm concerned about any small print...

Has anyone had a similar experience recently and can talk through what happened and how things went with the insurer.  Really don't want the home to be uninhabitable for months.

Sandtree

As you say, if its a moderate loss or above they'll appoint a loss adjustor to manage the claim who'll do an initial site visit (or may be a Zoom type session where you show them round with video) and then they'll consider what trades and specialists they want to appoint to deal with specific matters.

Clearly you need to tell them about the soot/smoke in other rooms but they will cover professional cleaning as required, they may try cleaning some items before then deciding to replace.