Clothes damage insurance claim

lonew0lf

Hi, My house was damage by water pipe burst while we were on holiday. The company assigned by the loss Adjusters came and took away all our wet clothes  shoes, bedding etc. for cleaning almost 1000 items in total. They gave as estimate of £7k to clean to the Loss Adjuster and the items they have estimated to be worth £25k. Loss Adjuster offered me to take the 7k and forego the clothes which I refused as the clothes are worth way more than that an i wanted then to give me back my clothes washed. However they have been unresponsive for months and it's been almost 3 months since those wet clothes have been lying mouldy in plastic bags somewhere. Now the loss Adjuster is saying they would clean and send these back to me. I am skeptical about those clothes now that they could be a potential health hazard considering how much mould would have grown in these 3 months . I wanted to know what I can do now? Please guide. Do I have to take the mouldy clothes or ask them to compensate for them. 

DullGreyGuy

lonew0lf said:

Hi, My house was damage by water pipe burst while we were on holiday. The company assigned by the loss Adjusters came and took away all our wet clothes  shoes, bedding etc. for cleaning almost 1000 items in total. They gave as estimate of £7k to clean to the Loss Adjuster and the items they have estimated to be worth £25k. Loss Adjuster offered me to take the 7k and forego the clothes which I refused as the clothes are worth way more than that an i wanted then to give me back my clothes washed. However they have been unresponsive for months and it's been almost 3 months since those wet clothes have been lying mouldy in plastic bags somewhere. Now the loss Adjuster is saying they would clean and send these back to me. I am skeptical about those clothes now that they could be a potential health hazard considering how much mould would have grown in these 3 months . I wanted to know what I can do now? Please guide. Do I have to take the mouldy clothes or ask them to compensate for them. 

First of all, have you checked if your policy is new for old on clothes? Traditionally many insurers didnt cover clothes on this basis but would depreciate their value over 3-5 years and hold at the residual. Always helps to know how your policy works before trying to negotiate. It has become less common in more recent times.

How many of the 1,000 items were wool/silk or some other fabric that has to be dry cleaned? 

I'm surprised the solution was ever that all should be kept offsite, the majority I would have imagined would have been machine washable and could just have been laundered at home or in a service wash in a laundrette for a lot less than £7/garment. Most laundrettes have 15-20kg machines which will take 50+ garments so 20 washes and your done. 

Laundering will kill moulds etc, ultimately if thats their process then let them try it and then check each garment for staining. 

lonew0lf

Thank you for your response. The reason they had to take away the clothes is because the damage was severe we were removed from our home immediately and housed elsewhere as they turned off the gas and electricity supply in the house. So there were no internal facility to wash the clothes not was it feasible to keep coming back to take loads to laundrette to wash. We still do not have our home and restoration will take 6 months. We don't have any clothes either apart from the few clothes we took on our holiday and have been surviving on those. The loss Adjuster was unresponsive for 8 weeks inspite of various phone calls, emails and complaints