worried sick , cracks in house

Annemos

In my case, the Company that did the boreholes (trial pits) and also the Company that did the Stud Monitoring, would only do exactly what the Loss Adjuster/Engineer had asked for. So they do not tend to make any decisions themselves. And they were not acting on anything I said or showed them. 

Only one borehole was ever done when they first came to review my home. I asked the chaps... "why aren't you doing more than one borehole?". They said "we have only been asked to do one". 

6 months later, two more were done after I had issued a Formal Complaint.

(I had a bit of building that stuck out and I was not prepared to accept that its foundation depth was the same as the main rectangle. And it wasn't. We were looking at the influence of Tree Roots.) 

RedFraggle

Annemos said:

I don't really understand why...... say a month before their Policy renews...... why all the Morethan and RSA homeowners have not been sent a letter in the form of this:   


"We are ceasing to provide Home Insurance Polices. When your current policy comes up for renewal...... (then a description about Admiral being a possible alternative)."  But then the letter should go on to say    "However, if you have opened a Claim for Suspected Subsidence before your Policy expires, please contact our Help-line on xxxxxxx"


That would be great Customer Service and the Homeowner would then know exactly what to do. 

(That other poor Poster had also approached Admiral mid-claim in July and they were quoted nearly 5000 pounds!)

There must have been poor communications somewhere along the line?? Or I am missing something?

I got a letter from More Than a month ago stating they would be unable to renew my policy in December. 

Bigphil1474

OP, when we had subsidence they told us the monitoring was to find out whether movement was still occurring, and they wouldn't fix the house until the movement had ceased. If it's still obviously moving they don't need to monitor movement. They fixed the cause (in our case a damaged water board drain), then monitored to see if that had remedied the movement, then repaired the house. They fixed glass plates in some locations in the house. If the glass plate broke then they know movement was still happening, and vice versa. They monitored for over a year before even starting repairs. 

78daniel

Bigphil1474 said:

 They monitored for over a year before even starting repairs. 

wow , monitored over a year, that seems to be a long time, 
did the problem not get worse over that period of time

Annemos

RedFraggle, are you still in the middle of a Subsidence Claim? 

If so, please see earlier in this Post and follow up with them again. Say they are members of the ABI and cannot drop you in the middle of a Subsidence Claim. Give them copies of those FOS cases if necessary. 


In my opinion, when they sent out those letters to you all, they should have made special mention for people who ARE in the process of Subsidence Claims with MoreThan and RSA, so they would know who to contact to keep a policy going with RSA.

 (The letters were probably sent out by an Admin Department? Somebody in their Technical Team should have intercepted this issue. I don't know how widescale the problem is. Just how many open Subsidence Claims there might still be. It is incredibly worrying for people with Subsidence claims to just be dropped, as it is almost impossible to find cover with another Insurer while a Subsidence Claim is ongoing.) 


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

Bigphil1474     Yes monitoring can take a while. I just had the studs. 

OP, with Tree roots they start monitoring from the start of the claim. Then they carry it on through the dry and wet seasons, to see what the "Clay shrink/swell movement" effect is on the building's cracks. And then how it changes after Tree Removal.  My own Structural Engineer also said one ideally needs to monitor for a Year after a Subsidence remedy, to make sure the property is stable and no longer moving. (Before repairs start.)

78daniel

hi all,
sorry for not posting anything earlier, but nothing much changed as monitoring was going on.

they have  now verified problem as caused by tree roots, but now asking for freeholder details, and some of trees belong to neighbours.

will contacting the freeholder have any implications for me or affect the claim in any way?

any ideas?

Annemos

Good evening 78daniel

I am very happy to hear that they have been monitoring and think they have found the cause: Tree Roots.

They will likely have to do some communications with the neighbours to sort out how best the trees can be managed. (Or even, perhaps, one or more should be taken down.)


I do not have any knowledge on Freeholders. This is more of an Insurance Question, I think. There is an expert on the Insurance Part of the Forum, who might know the answer to your question. 


I suggest putting a post on the Insurance Forum.  Say I am a leaseholder, but the terms of my lease say that I am  responsible for taking out the Building Insurance. I have submitted a claim for Subsidence and it is now under investigation for Tree Root damage. They have now asked me for Freeholder Details....etc etc.... your questions. 


(I think you own the property/building for the length of any lease period.   And the Freeholder owns the Land?    

Is it because Subsidence moves the land itself that the Freeholder has to be informed, too? 

I came across a case recently where both joint owners of a house had to give consent for an FOS case to be considered.  Maybe this is similar here. Both the Leaseholder and the Freeholder are affected by Subsidence. 

Also if a Root Barrier was going to be considered, that would also be placed in the Land and would potentially need the permission of the Freeholder?)

Bigphil1474

The insurers will be wanting to work out who foots the bill or whether it is shared etc.  Shouldn't make any difference to you. Just provide the info they ask for as and when, and one day it will be all done and dusted.

In answer to your question from last year - no there was no further movement over that year so they got on with doing the repairs. Fortunately there was no major works, they did have to strap the front of the house to the sides, and we had artex in the front room and front bedroom which contained asbestos so that had to all be removed before they could do the repairs (a bonus for us because it was on our list of jobs to do). We also got a new bay window - they said the old one was imperial size and they could only refit metric sizes for some reason. Again, a bonus. 

78daniel

thanks for replying, i will post on insurance forum as well

78daniel

hi peeps,
posting to update on claim so far

after nearly 10 months of monitoring , digging boreholes, sampling soil,  checking drainage, installation of deep datum etc, insurers have now informed me that the claim will be transferred to another company to deal with. ( a trusted  specialist company) in their words.

i beleive they will be carrying out similar investigations again.

is this normal practice or anything to be concerned about.?

has anyone else had similar issue.?

i had put this to the back of my mind , thinking i would just let the claim take its course, but now it seems i am back to square one.

would it be a good idea to ask the insurance company why they have changed the claim handling company?

any advice appreciated

thanks