House Insurance claim

bloomerang72

Hi

We recently (January) had to put in a claim when our toilet (clean water fortunately) leaked while we were away for a weekend, causing damage to the the bathroom,kitchen and porch.  We submitted a quote, which the loss adjusters said was high but eventually they said to start the work, starting with the bathroom to facilitate a speedy return (the floor was not safe for us to live there).  We were given an interim payment with no notification as to what this should cover.

We have been chasing further payments for this since the beginning of April and they have now said they will only pay us an amount that would leave us £9000 out of pocket. I feel they have falsely entered us into a contract with the builder by telling us to start (with no instruction on when to stop). They say the contract is between him and us, but we would never have asked him to start if we had known they would not cover the cost.

We have rejected their offer, but legally where do we stand?

Thanks for your time

Ganga

How much is the builder quoting for the job? if £9000 over it must be one heck of a claim ,did the insurance company not send someone out to assess the damage ? i would not have instructed a builder /plumber to commence without costs agreed by the insurers . 

jonnydeppiwish!

What damage was caused? Assuming it’s the bathroom floor, kitchen ceiling/porch then if it was only for 2 days then the bathroom would probably just need drying out, and the ceiling replaced in the other 2.

bloomerang72

Assessor came out - bathroom floor needed replacing as wasn't safe.  Whole bathroom had to be stripped of tiles (wall and floor) and redone.  Part of the landing floor had to be replaced. Kitchen ceiling and floor replaced as well as a bespoke cupboard in the kitchen.  Porch ceiling replace, then decorate throughout.  

It was my first time claiming so in my ignorance I assumed if they were telling us to start they were agreeing to pay the quote.

GDB2222

bloomerang72 said:

Assessor came out - bathroom floor needed replacing as wasn't safe.  Whole bathroom had to be stripped of tiles (wall and floor) and redone.  Part of the landing floor had to be replaced. Kitchen ceiling and floor replaced as well as a bespoke cupboard in the kitchen.  Porch ceiling replace, then decorate throughout.  

It was my first time claiming so in my ignorance I assumed if they were telling us to start they were agreeing to pay the quote.

On the face of it, you have a very good point. It does sound like you were being told to go ahead. However, nobody can advise you without seeing the full correspondence. 

A practical course would be to ask the insurance company to explain what they meant when they told you to proceed.

jonnydeppiwish!

I’m not sure why the bathroom floor would be unsafe just from a couple of days of water. You would expect that to dry out. Additionally, only the first one or 2 rows of tiles on the walls would need to be removed.

Again with the kitchen floor, not sure why that wouldn’t dry out especially if it had been tiled on top of marine ply or tile board. £9k seems significantly excessive for the whole works let alone over the top of what the insurance company have offered.

Ganga

How high was the estimate for the whole job ?

joeylew

You can always use a private Loss Assessor and they will take over the claim and get you a better deal. We didn't even realise that was an option but they got us a much better deal than if we had claimed ourselves.