House insurance claim - Loss assessors

KAT1977

Sorry in advance for the long post!
Our rental property suffered some fire damage at the end of last summer, within hours of the fire a loss assessor contacted us and offered to manage the claim at no cost to us as they get paid by the contractors they give the work to. As we have never claimed on our insurance before, being unsure of the process and being extremely busy at work we decided to take the loss assessor on.

We received an email from the loss assessor company explaining what they do and stating clearly that there is no cost to us, we agreed to use the company and they sent us a photo of the front page of a form giving them authority to deal with the insurance company on our behalf. The form refers to T&Cs on reverse but we were not sent the reverse page, and (stupidly) we didn’t ask to see it. We printed the form off, signed it and scanned it back to the loss assessment company.

All seemed to be going ok, they messaged every so often with updates and we left them to it. However, this weekend we received an email from them stating that the amount the insurance company are offering is less than the minimum they require for their services so they will be changing us 20% of the net amount offered by the insurance company plus VAT, coming to about £5,000! 

Our question is, are they allowed to charge us £5,000 when they said their service was free? It feels like they have miss-sold their services to us, or have we just been naive thinking the service was free?

Please no negative comments we just want some friendly advice, and / or to hear of other peoples experiences, thank you 😊 

Sandtree

The challenge is proving thats what they said, in particular as you signed paperwork saying you agree to the reverse when the reverse was missing. 

You should ask for a copy of the reverse to see what it says and in addition to their fees what their complaints process is. If its not there then look on their website.

I have to admit I dont know if loss assessors are covered by the FOS and their "claims management company" service  How to complain (financial-ombudsman.org.uk) so may be worth asking them. Similarly you could check with the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjustors (loss adjustors and loss assessors are the same and just who appoints them change their name) to see if they company/person is a member and their complaint process

KAT1977

We have the very first email they sent before we signed anything that states in capital letters that there is no charge for using them. I will take a look at the website and see if they can help!
Thank you 👍

user1977

KAT1977 said:

they sent us a photo of the front page of a form giving them authority to deal with the insurance company on our behalf. The form refers to T&Cs on reverse but we were not sent the reverse page

And you still have that email?

KAT1977

Hi yes we have all the emails that they have sent, they also quote its a free service on their website.

Annemos

Good morning KAT1977

I am very sorry to hear that you have this stressful thing going on. 


I am not an expert, so I am imagining what I would do if this happened to me, 

I always thought that with Loss Assessors through the Claims Management Companies.....

1) They either take the whole job over and do all the repairs using their contractors. Along the way, they also fight hard to make sure that the Insurance Company has paid everything that should be paid out, under the insurance policy. 

or 2) You do not use their own repairers and then you have to pay a fee to them. 


Are they now refusing to do 1).......  and so they are forcing you to do 2)? 

Is that allowed in their terms and conditions? This is what you need to find out first, I think. And was it clearly brought to your attention?  (After that there is perhaps then the question of whether they did enough when dealing with your Insurance Company over the pay-out.) 

==============================


The company has to be registered on the FCA website to be able to complain through the Ombudsman, I believe.

Link here. Half way down click on "firms" and then try putting their name in. 

https://register.fca.org.uk/s/


(Also you must have formally complained to the Company first, and I imagine given them 8 weeks to respond to you.) 


===================================


I have also noticed that there is now a new area on the Ombudsman's website for Ombudsman decisions on Claims Management Complaints. I took a quick look and there are MANY complaints about PIP. I did also see a couple of complaints that were about the way cars had been repaired using a claims management company. I tried to search including Fire, but nothing was popping up. 

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/news-events/complaints-small-businesses-claims-management-companies


Ombudsman decisions (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)         Click on the button for CMC's


Good luck with this. 

Annemos

Another note on looking for a company on the FCA website. I decided to test it with the first company I found called Claimowl on their website. 

I plugged that in and nothing came up. But if you look at the ClaimOwl website.... in small letters at the bottom it says.....

©2021 ClaimOwl is a Trading style of Impakt Claims


That Impakt one does pop up. So does Claim Owl 

So you may need to look for their actual FCA name quite carefully. 

KAT1977

Hi Annemos!
thank you for taking the time to reply. Your explanation about the option of 1) they do it all, or 2) we do it ourselves makes their email a bit clearer. 
Yes, I think that because the insurance company are paying out less that their contractors have quoted, they are forcing us to take the money and sort it out ourselves hence the £5k fee!
They have never mentioned this could happen or was even an option to be considered, we have never received their terms and conditions so I cannot say for sure if this is allowed. I will ask them for a copy of the T&Cs to check. I really feel like they have not been transparent or honest with us. We have certain learned a lesson!
They are registered on the FCA website so I think that we will write to their complaints department in the first instance as suggested expressing our thoughts and go from there...

Annemos

I also wonder if, in the background, this type of thing could be going on.... 

a) Your insurance company, according to most insurance policies, only has to pay out what they would pay their own Insurance Contractors. Homeowners often find this is less that would be needed if they got the Building and other repairs done themselves. 

Does that mean that the offer from the Insurance is lower that what would be required by the Loss Assessor's contractors to do the work? 

And also all the prices have escalated for building materials since Covid. 


b) Even with the Contents, the Insurance Company often has several clauses. For example they might state in the policy that they will only pay out what they would pay to their own nominated retail outlets for your goods.

They get a special Contract Deal with their nominated retail outlets. So this may also be lower than what we would have to pay out if we went to the shops. 

I don't know how Loss Assessors for CMC's manage the Contents side. 

Annemos

Good afternoon KAT1977

I have not read this in detail. But I came across this Ombudsman case on my own research expeditions for something else. 

I remembered your case. Maybe this is useful for you? (If not too late!)


https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-3358765.pdf

KAT1977

Thank you for this, it’s interesting reading! We have just received our settlement so are about to write to the company regarding their fee and see what response we get so you have posted at a great time, thanks!