Aviva home insurance – kitchen still a mess 2 years on

MSADMA

Hi all,

 I’d really appreciate some advice and to hear from anyone with similar experiences.

I’ve had a long-running home insurance claim with Aviva after an escape of water which damaged my kitchen. Their appointed contractor, Premier Property Services (PPS), started but never finished the job, and I’ve been left with a part-stripped, unsafe kitchen and a cash offer that is nowhere near enough to put it right.

I’m now looking at small claims court, but before I go down that road I’d like to sanity-check things and see if others have been through similar with Aviva / insurer-appointed builders.

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Very short version

• Escape of water in the kitchen (late 2023).

• Aviva accepted the claim and appointed PPS to do the work.

• Months of delay, minimal progress, then PPS effectively walk away.

• Aviva now say some of the problem is “pre-existing” and that there’s no damp-proof course (DPC).

• I have photos and paperwork showing there is a DPC.

• Aviva offered a cash settlement that’s less than half of an independent quote to put things right.

• Ombudsman has been involved but hasn’t fully resolved it.

• I’m now considering small claims and trying to find out if others have had similar treatment.

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Timeline of what happened

(Approx dates to keep this readable)

• Late September / early October 2023 – Escape of water in the kitchen. Water damage to the floor and units. I report a claim to Aviva. They accept the claim and say their contractor will sort it.

• Mid–late 2023 – Aviva appoint Premier Property Services (PPS). They eventually come out, inspect and do some strip-out: sections of damaged floor, tiles and units are removed to help things dry. After that, progress more or less stalls. I keep chasing.

• Early 2024 – I’m told there is a “pre-existing damp problem” and that there is no damp-proof course (DPC), so Aviva won’t cover certain works. At this point parts of the kitchen are stripped out and we’re living with exposed floor / sub-floor.

• After that – I obtain my own evidence. A builder I instructed had previously fitted a DPC, and I still have paperwork. I also have photos of the exposed wall at floor level clearly showing the DPC as a black strip running through the mortar joint.

  In other words, the house does have a DPC. It was visible on site once the floor was up. Despite this, the insurer’s position is still that there is no DPC and that much of the problem is pre-existing.

• Repairs left incomplete – The contractor never properly reinstates the floor or units. The kitchen is left with open sections of floor, exposed joists/sub-floor, and walls partly stripped. It’s not what most people would consider a habitable, safe kitchen.

• Complaint to Aviva – I raise a formal complaint about:

  • the delays and the contractor walking away,

  • the property being left in an unsafe/unfinished condition,

  • the “no DPC / pre-existing damage” line despite my photos and paperwork.

• Aviva’s response – After the complaints process, Aviva:

  • stick to their position that some of the issues are pre-existing and not covered,

  • offer a cash settlement for the parts they say are covered.
    The problem is that their offer is far less than an independent contractor’s quote to do the job properly (less than half, once you include everything needed to put the kitchen back as it was).

• Ombudsman – I escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service. There’s a long wait. Eventually a decision is issued which, in simple terms, doesn’t require Aviva to fully fund the repairs, and largely accepts their argument about pre-existing issues. I also have concerns about what evidence was or wasn’t fully considered (at one point I was told additional evidence couldn’t be taken into account after a decision stage).

• Now (late 2025) – I haven’t accepted Aviva’s offer as it won’t make me whole. My kitchen is still not fully reinstated. I’m now looking seriously at small claims court as the only remaining route.

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The damp-proof course (DPC) issue

This bit really bothers me.

• I have photographs of the exposed wall at floor level clearly showing a damp-proof course – a black plastic strip running horizontally in the mortar joint.

• I also have paperwork from when the DPC was installed by a builder I instructed.

• This DPC was visible on site once the floor was taken up.

Despite that, the insurer’s feedback says there is no DPC and uses “pre-existing damp / no DPC” as part of the justification for limiting what they’ll pay.

I’ve got both photographs and paperwork showing that a damp-proof course was fitted, yet the insurer’s report still says there isn’t one. I find that very hard to accept, and I’m increasingly worried this might not be a one-off but part of how they handle these claims.

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What I’m hoping for from this post

I’m mainly looking for:

1. Experiences from others

   • Has anyone else had similar problems with Aviva or insurer-appointed contractors (e.g. PPS)?

   • Has anyone had an insurer deny the existence of a DPC or lean heavily on “pre-existing issues” after a claim has already been accepted?

2. Small claims court advice

   • If you’ve taken an insurer to small claims court after an Ombudsman decision, how did the court look at it?

   • What sort of evidence was most useful (photos, independent reports, quotes, timelines, etc.)?

3. Reality check on the settlement

   • In general terms, if a cash offer is less than half of a realistic independent quote to put the damage right, is it reasonable to argue that the insurer hasn’t met their obligation to put you back in the position you were in before the loss?

I know nobody here can give me legal advice as such, but I’d be really grateful for any shared experiences, practical tips, or things you wish you’d known before going up against an insurer in this sort of situation.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

MyRealNameToo

The first decision by the Ombudsman is made by an adjudicator or investigator. If you do not accept their decision the matter is then escalated to an Ombudsman. All decisions that go to an ombudsman are published online. So did you reject the adjudicator's decision and have you had the ombudsman decision? If yes can you share the case number so the redacted version of the decision can be viewed on their website?

1) Pre-existing damage is a common problem, have dealt with it plenty of times but from the being the claims handler not the claimant. 

2) There is no acceleration of case that have been via the ombudsman and now are being litigated, rather than asking the courts to issue an order based on the ombudsman's decisions. I have not seen a single case where the ombudsman didnt uphold the case but the claimant subsequently won at court. Not saying none exist, certainly judicial reviews of cases that the ombudsman did uphold have said the ombudsman was wrong but thats kind of the point, the ombudsman is generally considered more consumer leaning than the courts.

What evidence you need will depend on what you are actually claiming for, this is will generally be actual financial losses so thing like timelines are irrelevant unless you have been paying for a rental because you considered the property inhabitable etc. A judge will just be a random former lawyer and not someone with any qualifications in buildings or how to determine the age of damage etc. As such you are much better off with expert report than just a photo. Presumably PPS were acting as the loss adjuster? Their report will be the main evidence the insurer will use and on the basis they get paid more if the claim is higher if anything they are incentivised to turn a blind eye to pre-existing damage. 

3) First of all read what you policy book states is their legal obligations. In most cases policy terms are that cash settlements will represent what it will cost the insurer to do the repairs and inevitably they receive substantial discounts from their preferred supplier due to volumes. You also need to ensure that your quote excludes any of the work they say is for pre-existing damage.

Presumably you have already paid the excess? May be worth also checking if their quote includes the VAT, I have known some insurers to be a bit funny with it where the customer may or many not actually use a VAT registered company to do the work or not but in my experience that isnt really Aviva's style (note that Aviva is a massive organisation covering the full spectrum from fairly basic lower end of the market to high net worth policies - where you are on the product range will influence matters)

MSADMA

Thanks for taking the time to reply, it’s really helpful to hear it from the claims side, even if it’s not quite what I was hoping for.

 

Yes, I’ve been right through the FOS process. I had an adjudicator’s decision first, I didn’t accept that, and it was then passed to an ombudsman. I’ve had the final ombudsman decision now. I’d rather not post the case number on here as that would make it a bit too easy to identify me, but in short the ombudsman did go along with Aviva’s view about “pre-existing damage” and didn’t tell them to fund the full repair.

 

My problem is I don’t agree with the facts that decision was based on. Aviva told FOS there was basically no damp proof course and that a lot of what is wrong was there already. In reality there is a DPC. It was fitted by a builder I instructed and I still have the paperwork. Once the floor was up I took clear photos at floor level and you can see the black DPC strip running through the mortar joint. I’ve since had a DSAR from Aviva and seen some of their internal notes and photos. From what I can see they were looking at underfloor damp after the escape of water, and some of the photos they relied on simply don’t show the DPC because they only cover part of the wall.

 

I didn’t really understand exactly what had been sent to FOS until after the final decision came back. When I then tried to send in the extra photos and the builder’s paperwork, I was told the case was closed and they couldn’t look at any new evidence. From my side there was no history of damp before the leak, there is a DPC and I can prove it, and the underfloor damp only appears after the escape of water and all the delay and half-finished work. That’s why the “pre-existing damage” label feels so wrong in my case. I do get that it’s a genuine issue in plenty of other cases, but I don’t think it is here.

 

I understand what you’re saying about court and that it’s rare for someone to lose at FOS and then win in front of a judge, and that FOS is usually more consumer-friendly than the courts. That’s exactly why I’m hesitating. The only reason I’m still thinking about small claims is that the ombudsman never really saw the full picture, especially around the DPC, because of how and when the evidence was put in. A judge would at least get to see the photos, the builder’s documents and the DSAR material together. Whether that actually changes anything I honestly don’t know, and I’m not assuming this will be easy, but I feel I at least have to look at it properly.

 

I agree with you about needing more than photos. My next step is to get an independent surveyor or builder’s report that looks at what caused the damage and what is needed to put it right, and to make sure any quote clearly separates out anything Aviva are calling “pre-existing” so it’s obvious what I’m actually asking for. I’ll also go back over the policy wording about cash settlements versus using their own contractors, and check exactly what they’ve done with VAT in the figures.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to go through it all. Even if we’re coming at it from different angles, it does help to see how this is likely to be viewed from the other side.