Subsidence claim and insurance

Gracie4

Hello. I hope someone can help as this has been so stressful and I feel I’m getting nowhere. In 2022 after the hot dry summer there were cracks in the building at the back of my house - bit like a conservatory and downstairs toilet. They were filled and decorated but happened again so I claimed through my insurance. The claim was accepted and they said it was subsidence. They took samples and said the beech hedge should be cut right back as it was clay shrinkage and that the building would stabilise and come back up. We have had the wettest winter and flooding but only new cracks and no uplifting. Their local contractors finally came to assess and said it didn’t need underpinning but that it would reinstate itself.  You can see the whole back wall has sunk but they keep talking about structural work and then say decorating only. The end window is under extreme stress and all the water pipes have come away from the wall. It has also affected the drainage which runs under the building. But why fill cracks and replace window with smaller one if it was going to return to its previous level?  I said I wasn’t going to pay £1000 excess for a bit of decorating I could do myself. 

Sorry about the rant - its been going on for so long it’s making me ill!

I’ve been trying to get copies of insurance documents to send to financial ombudsman and noticed it has a section that says no subsidence and now that’s worrying me to death but think claim is on 2021-2022 policy. I’ve been with the same company for several years and my policy went up by £450 I said it must have been because of subsidence claim. But I don’t know whether to contact them and say I presumed that as I had made a claim for subsidence they would make a note of it. The loss adjusters said the premium increase was because of subsidence claim.

thank you for any advice. 

This is first time posting so hope I’ve done it correctly!

Annemos

Good afternoon Gracie4 

I have just been away, so I am sorry for the late reply. 

Just a couple of points that occur to me, reading your post. 


1    If you have had a claim, but the cracking is still ongoing and has not been properly resolved..... have you tried contacting them to come out and have another look? (The Loss Adjuster/Engineer from the Insurance Company.) 

2    The Excess to be paid is not ONLY for the repairs. There was also the cost of their survey and investigations and soil sampling. It would easily have come up to at least 1000 pounds in costs. And that is what you are normally liable for in any claim. 

Have you now agreed to pay the 1000 pounds excess, or are you at a stalemate with them? If so, they might refuse to come out again. 

3    I am not clear what you mean in the section about the Ombudsman. I am not sure you are actually at that stage yet. 

4    It is quite normal for annual premiums to go up after a Subsidence claim. Mine went from about 350 pounds a year before, to about 650 pounds a year afterwards. You are deemed to have a higher risk property.

You do need to stay with the same Insurer after a Subsidence claim, in case any further problems arise with stability. (Which you may indeed be having.) And also because it is much more difficult to get a different Insurer to provide cover after a Subsidence claim. 


In summary. Obviously I do not know what is going on from a brief posting. But my feeling is that if you have come to a stalemate over that Excess. Say that you have now had some explanations and you now realise you need to pay the excess 1000 pounds. Apologise for not having understood what the excess was for. Then ask them to come out and take another look at the ongoing damage. (Send them some new photos of why you think there is still an issue.) 

Hope that helps. 


(If this does not work, you would potentially have to hire your own Structural Engineer to do another report for you on what is going on with your home. The Ombudsman Service would need to see this as evidence, if you were to go to the Service.

If this new survey is substantially different to what the Insurance Company one is saying (the cause and the remedy), and it is Subsidence, then the  Ombudsman may say that you should get reimbursed the costs for your own survey.)