House insurance claims and mental health

Ruggles_2

Due to the need to make a claim approx 2 years ago I find myself not quite able to believe how vulnerable people can be treated by large insurance companies. I support someone who must avoid stress but the pressure from the way their claim is being dealt with is causing great distress and no one appears to take any notice. We complained over a year ago and last contact was July 2025 so they cant be bothered to treat this client well. I am finding it hard to understand why when their voice mail reminds you to let them know if as a customer you have a health problem that the insurance company- a very large one- does not help its vulnerable customers. I know there is a lot of help for people who have money problems but this kind of protracted and drawn out and distressing (try living in one room for 2 years if your home and all its contents were destroyed) situation is hard as I can't find anyone//body who can help.

Can anyone suggest a way to resolve this- they can't to go to Ombudsman and need final response from company, and that would also mean going through it all over again and they would end up soo stressed out and maybe even hospitalised - so they want to avoid that and just get home again.

elsien

I can’t see that you have any other options outside of complaints then ombudsman.

however, if the person is not up to dealing with it themselves, they could do a third-party agreement for someone else to deal with it on their behalf if there is no in place.

Ruggles_2

Thank you but the point is that they should not deliberately operate in a way which makes you want to just agree to anything as its affecting your health. I do help with this - but the company dont answer emails, make it hard to find out who is doing what and are generally quite hard for me to work with and I dont have a mental health issue- so someone who is disabled by their condition is not really helped by this attitude in Insurance.

elsien

You asked for a way to resolve the situation. I’m really not sure what else you are looking for outside of the prescribed routes.

sheramber

Have they made a complaint?

If they have what was the response to the complaint?

If they have not made a complaint- not just questions on emails, but stating ‘this is a complaint’, then they need to do that now.

If there is no response to the complaint after 8 weeks or the answer is not satisfactory then they can go to the ombudsman.

write out timeline and bullet points so the information is at hand when required.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81873951#Comment_81873951

Why not go back to the beginning and say what's happened, what the insurer has done to date, what's stopping things progressing.

95% of people buy their insurance on price not value or quality. The reality for insurers is that the main way to win more business is by being cheaper. To achieve cheaper prices you cut cover, your reduce staffing levels, remove staff autonomy which means lower training, lower salaries, lower oversight etc. Unfortunately a lot of people then complain afterwards that they went for the cheapest cover and discovered it wasnt that great when it came to use it.

If its a large loss would have expected a loss adjuster to be appointed to manage the claim which at least gives some consistency through the process. Often smaller claims, or almost any Motor claim or other class you are dealt with by the call centre and so each person dealing with the case is seeing it for the first time and has tight KPIs to get you off the phone and onto the next calller.

It may be a case where you would be better to appoint a Loss Assessor, they are the same people as Loss Adjustors but they work for the claimant rather than the Insurer and take the stress out of making a claim. Often if you agree to use their preferred suppliers then there will be no additional charge as they get kickbacks from the companies they appoint.

The Ombudsman may be a problem, you have to go to them within 6 months of receiving the final response to a complaint. Almost certainly you have made an expression of disatisfaction and claimed its causing material distress, inconvenience or cost by now and this is the definition of a complaint. There is no such thing as a "formal" and "informal" complaint. You may find you are time barred for taking matters to the ombudsman though you may be eligible to make a new complaint about what's occurred (or not) since the last complaint

Ruggles_2

A complaint was made last year and to date no update has been recieved since july last year - We had to chase to ask for one . I am keen to hand this over ombudsman but its not my decision I am trying to help and not take over so fine line to walk. We have a loss adjustor - they refused to send regular updates and like all involved with this do not reply to emails for weeks at a time and generally treat a vulnerable client disgracefully in my humble opinion- they can drag it out and make it difficult to save money for the firm knowing that the person involved might become unwell and then all decisions will be taken from them.