Plumber being taken to Court

Ectophile

Just to over-emphasise my last point, I am the one who organises insurance for a small club.  This is arranged through an "umbrella" group for the hobby.

When we took out new public liability insurance after COVID, it was firmly drilled into me that if the club receives anything that looks like a claim, then I must:

• Contact the insurance company.
• Pass the claim on to them.
• Make no attempt to defend the claim myself - that's the insurance company's job.

If we do what the insurance company tells us to, then the insurance will pay out if we lose.  If we try to defend it ourselves, then the insurance company will have nothing to do with it, and leave the club committee to foot the bill.

Okell

Ectophile said:

Getoffmycloud said:

thebullsback said:

did your Husband have Insurance to protect his company from this sort of event?

Hi, yes he does have liability insurance, but they have been very unhelpful. What we didn't realise with liability insurance is that their solicitors will only take on a case if they believe there is more than 51% of chance of winning the case. They do not believe he has more than a 51% chance and therefore will not take the case on.

That's not liability insurance.  That's legal expenses cover.

If he had liability insurance, then it makes no odds what his chances of winning are.  The whole point of liability insurance is that if you make a mistake, and someone successfully sues you, then the insurance company pays out.

Go back to the insurance company and try explaining the problem again.

From my experience of such policies, the correct thing to do is to make no attempt to defend yourself.  Send all paperwork to the insurance company and let them deal with it.

But take guidance from the insurance company.  Get it wrong, and the insurance company will deny the claim and walk away.

This!  ^^^

My immediate thought when I read the quoted post from @Getoffmycloud was that they had confused legal expenses cover with liability insurance.

I'd have thought that every prudent tradesman would have liability insurance to cover them in case they ever got sued.  It's certainly something we check with people working on our house, but I suppose it's possible the OP's husband didn't have such cover.

Unless it's known for certain that the OP's husband had no liabilty insurance, I'd definitely be going back to my insurer ASAP.

(@Getoffmycloud -  even if your husband no longer has liabilty cover because it's expired or not been renewed, what's important is whether he was covered at the time the work was done)

Okell

Ectophile said:

Just to over-emphasise my last point, I am the one who organises insurance for a small club.  This is arranged through an "umbrella" group for the hobby.

When we took out new public liability insurance after COVID, it was firmly drilled into me that if the club receives anything that looks like a claim, then I must:

• Contact the insurance company.
• Pass the claim on to them.
• Make no attempt to defend the claim myself - that's the insurance company's job.

If we do what the insurance company tells us to, then the insurance will pay out if we lose.  If we try to defend it ourselves, then the insurance company will have nothing to do with it, and leave the club committee to foot the bill.

And this ^

Getoffmycloud

Ectophile said:

Getoffmycloud said:

thebullsback said:

did your Husband have Insurance to protect his company from this sort of event?

Hi, yes he does have liability insurance, but they have been very unhelpful. What we didn't realise with liability insurance is that their solicitors will only take on a case if they believe there is more than 51% of chance of winning the case. They do not believe he has more than a 51% chance and therefore will not take the case on.

That's not liability insurance.  That's legal expenses cover.

If he had liability insurance, then it makes no odds what his chances of winning are.  The whole point of liability insurance is that if you make a mistake, and someone successfully sues you, then the insurance company pays out.

Go back to the insurance company and try explaining the problem again.

From my experience of such policies, the correct thing to do is to make no attempt to defend yourself.  Send all paperwork to the insurance company and let them deal with it.

But take guidance from the insurance company.  Get it wrong, and the insurance company will deny the claim and walk away.

Thank you Ectophile for your response.

It was the legal expenses cover that came with the liability insurance. We did go through the insurance company to begin with and they put us on to the legal expenses side who then deemed that the case did not have more than 51% chance of winning and therefore wouldn't take the case on.

When this happened the insurance company said there was nothing more they could do and we were on our own. I even asked if my husband were to lose the court case and had to pay the customer would they pay up the money and they said no. Like I said the insurance company have been rubbish.

Getoffmycloud

Thank you Ectophile and Okell. It was definitely liability insurance, as I mentioned in my previous comment, but I wonder if where we went wrong was that we did defend my husband. The insurance company asked what happened and we went back and gave them his side of the story i.e. defending him.

I'm guessing that's why they said they wouldn't help any further.

The insurance has been cancelled now as he is no longer self-employed, but he was covered at the time of the event.

user1977

They should still cover the liability element of it - remember that he can enforce the insurance policy against the insurers even if they appear reluctant to help. Probably more for the Insurance board than here though as none of this actually involves consumer rights given it's a business-to-business dispute.

Getoffmycloud

user1977 said:

They should still cover the liability element of it - remember that he can enforce the insurance policy against the insurers even if they appear reluctant to help. Probably more for the Insurance board than here though as none of this actually involves consumer rights given it's a business-to-business dispute.

Thank you user1977. Can I ask how you enforce an insurance policy against the insurers?

user1977

Getoffmycloud said:

user1977 said:

They should still cover the liability element of it - remember that he can enforce the insurance policy against the insurers even if they appear reluctant to help. Probably more for the Insurance board than here though as none of this actually involves consumer rights given it's a business-to-business dispute.

Thank you user1977. Can I ask how you enforce an insurance policy against the insurers?

Ultimately by taking them to court. It's a contract. There is an ombudsman though, so initial steps would be to raise a complaint (assuming he is satisfied that he is in fact covered by the policy - but you find that out by reading the policy, not by asking the insurers!).

Getoffmycloud

user1977 said:

Ultimately by taking them to court. It's a contract. There is an ombudsman though, so initial steps would be to raise a complaint (assuming he is satisfied that he is in fact covered by the policy - but you find that out by reading the policy, not by asking the insurers!).

Thank you. Yes definitely satisfied that he is covered. I'll raise a complaint- thank you again!

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

On the point of insurance, I thought liability insurance was to cover injury and loss/damage to property, I'm sure it's been mentioned here before that there is a separate type of insurance to cover work not being done to the correct standard? 

I understand a small part of the claim is for damage but the bulk is effectively claiming the contract has been breached due to a lack of care and skill (I appreciate that is in dispute and the customer's claim sounds as if it may be without merit).