Home Insurance Discussion

Annemos

I do hope the household in Gateshead are OK. What an awful thing to happen to them. I wonder if they mind that their house has been all over the media? 

youth_leader

I haven't seen it, just googling now.

Annemos

The Sun has a video on-line. It looks horrendous.

(Did you also see my reply before that, about how claims are handled? It went onto the previous page, so you may have missed it.) 

youth_leader

Hello Annemos, the claims info was very interesting - so much fraud!  I googled BVS and many disgruntled people, I wonder which insurance companies they act for.

I found the Blaydon incident - my son's girlfriend's parents live in Blaydon, they are away on holiday at the moment, I hope their ridge tiles are still on!  So very frightening.  

I didn't know what to do when my roof started blowing off - I could hear and see it hanging over the back of the bungalow.  I ran next door to warn my neighbour it was heading for his conservatory, and he told me to go back home and stay safe indoors.  I don't think I've ever been as frightened, no electricity and water pouring in through every spotlight.  The ceiling started coming down about three days later.  My surveyor helped me as a friend in need, I don't know what I'd have done without him.

Damage in my area is still very apparent with flapping tarpaulins and I think every available scaffold is up.  Lots of chimneys have gone through into the houses, one of my biggest fears, I had eight chimneys at my old house. 

A chalet style bungalow up the road had a 'balcony' on the first floor - Storm Arwen dislodged it, and it fell pulling the front of the building off with it.  Owner has been told she can go back in June.

My builder is going to the house he finished before Christmas tomorrow - the tree has come down onto the roof, and the branches came through the bedroom ceiling, through the floor and into the lounge below.  I know the village and there are some ancient trees there, so tragic. I sent my last box of chocolates with him to give to the owner, she has hard times ahead as materials are in such short supply.

Have a nice evening, I'm off for some Light Entertainment on Netflix!

Annemos

Totally terrifying your descriptions of the storm and also that poor lady who has been hit now. How very sad. The damage you are describing is really severe. Trees can be very dangerous. 


The most scary thing I was ever in (apart from an arsonist attack that took place 9 meters behind my place), was actually an earthquake in the Himalayas. It was a 6.3 on the scale and the 6 story hotel I was in was shaking. I just lay in bed absorbing it. and I did not even have a table to dive under! I should have moved myself very quickly.

The driver came up to see if I was OK and he was laughing at the way my legs were shaking. They shook for about 3 hours afterwards! The next day I transferred to a single story hotel.


Panic situations are incredibly unpleasant and must shorten our lives, I think


Please enjoy Netflix and forget everything.


Oh and in my case BVS was there on behalf of an Arranger company called Direct Group Property Services Ltd and both of them were on my SAGA Premier home insurance policy. (This policy turned out to be anything but Premier.) 

Both Direct Group and BVS are now within Davies group who are another big Claims handling company. 


But all the Claims Handling companies act for many different Insurance companies. So they can crop up at any time if you claim. 

youth_leader

Morning Annemos, I did some googling of storm damage after my Netflix viewing.  It seems some people who experienced roof damage didn't register enough 'wind speed' to be able to claim - a family in Sheffield are still without a roof, Aviva said 44 mph was not acceptable.  Unfortunately I cannot remember what the minimum wind speed for my company was when I rang, I think it was 55 mph.  My local weather station recorded my speed as 78 mph so my claim was forwarded. 

 When it happened my phone battery was down to 20%, I was so lucky a friend let me charge it at her house at 8 am on the Saturday morning, I was able to hold on to the insurance phone line for over two hours and register my claim.  The insurance company only operate Saturday morning, so glad I finally got through.  I've now bought a power bank as power cuts here seem to be increasing, I am still looking for an old fashioned 'plug in' phone. 

I'm glad you survived the earthquake, how scary!.  My friend in Woodland Hills California has everything blu tacked down, she lost everything during a bad quake. 

I agree that the adrenalin we experience during these emergencies is damaging, I didn't sleep for weeks,  especially when it started raining in the night and I had to go in by candlelight to move/empty the buckets. 

I am sorry you have subsidence, and do hope you have a positive result very soon.  I am on a widow's website, and someone purchased a bungalow for cash, and didn't have a survey.  She couldn't get her key in one day shortly after purchase, and rang the locksmith.  Unfortunately it was because the door had dropped due to subsidence, the bungalow was sinking, poor woman. 

I paid for a L3 but due to surveyors being unable to lift carpets, have now found the front bedroom has wet/dry rot and woodworm. I also found out from a neighbour the seller had all the other floors removed for woodworm, and replaced with chipboard - they are all black with mould.  Once the roof/ceiling work etc is complete I'll be moving all my possessions from the three bedrooms into the lounge/kitchen, and will camp in the garden while the damp company investigate. I have an elderly cat and dog and don't want to kennel them and stay in a hotel, hopefully we'll manage a week of roughing it! 

SaverRate

youth_leader said:

Morning Annemos, I did some googling of storm damage after my Netflix viewing.  It seems some people who experienced roof damage didn't register enough 'wind speed' to be able to claim - a family in Sheffield are still without a roof, Aviva said 44 mph was not acceptable.  Unfortunately I cannot remember what the minimum wind speed for my company was when I rang, I think it was 55 mph.  My local weather station recorded my speed as 78 mph so my claim was forwarded. 

 When it happened my phone battery was down to 20%, I was so lucky a friend let me charge it at her house at 8 am on the Saturday morning, I was able to hold on to the insurance phone line for over two hours and register my claim.  The insurance company only operate Saturday morning, so glad I finally got through.  I've now bought a power bank as power cuts here seem to be increasing, I am still looking for an old fashioned 'plug in' phone. 

I'm glad you survived the earthquake, how scary!.  My friend in Woodland Hills California has everything blu tacked down, she lost everything during a bad quake. 

I agree that the adrenalin we experience during these emergencies is damaging, I didn't sleep for weeks,  especially when it started raining in the night and I had to go in by candlelight to move/empty the buckets. 

I am sorry you have subsidence, and do hope you have a positive result very soon.  I am on a widow's website, and someone purchased a bungalow for cash, and didn't have a survey.  She couldn't get her key in one day shortly after purchase, and rang the locksmith.  Unfortunately it was because the door had dropped due to subsidence, the bungalow was sinking, poor woman. 

I paid for a L3 but due to surveyors being unable to lift carpets, have now found the front bedroom has wet/dry rot and woodworm. I also found out from a neighbour the seller had all the other floors removed for woodworm, and replaced with chipboard - they are all black with mould.  Once the roof/ceiling work etc is complete I'll be moving all my possessions from the three bedrooms into the lounge/kitchen, and will camp in the garden while the damp company investigate. I have an elderly cat and dog and don't want to kennel them and stay in a hotel, hopefully we'll manage a week of roughing it! 

My Home insurers, Quote me happy (Aviva), state The wind speed or gust should normally exceed 55mph (48 knots) to be a ‘storm’ but we take other factors into consideration such as where the property is sited. A storm can highlight defects rather than cause them and damage due to lack of maintenance, wear and tear or which happens gradually is not covered.

Annemos

Good morning again.

Yes indeed, there is all the small print and one doesn't know the implication until you have to make a claim. We are both wiser now, youth_leader. Good luck with the floor work etc. (I love the idea of using blu-tak in an earthquake zone.) 


I had lived in my little bungalow for 16 years before the big Subsidence surge of 2018. The problem was that 2 trees were planted by the developers when they built the estate in 1980, but they were planted on the Council-owned green area. We are a heavy clay area.

We were never allowed to touch them and the Council did zero maintenance and just let the 2 big trees grow and grow. They were far too close to me and my neighbours. I got hit first when my corner suddenly dropped. 

(Anybody who is interested.... a Norway Maple.  And the most awful one....a Liquidamber (Sweet Gum Tree)). 

They have now been removed, but my life, my health and my bungalow have been spoilt.



I have been so upset by the way the claim has been handled from the outset and then my external walls being damaged by the utterly incompetent Insurance repairers. I have not slept properly for 3 and a half years. Endless researching trying to find out what should be done.

The problem is that the Insurance Industry says that it is providing you with Engineering services, but they can turn out to be utterly minimal which is dreadful in a Subsidence case. And we have not got the money to be abe to hire our own Structural Engineer from the start and to continue using him on an ongoing basis. (Even finding one was so difficult for me.) 

I have had to call mine in 3 times after it had gone wrong yet again.... and every time is costs at least 600 pounds and you do not know if you will get the money back. 

And really, you do have to use the repairers of the Insurance Company, in order to try and keep an ongoing Insurance policy with them after the claim. (They can drop you if somebody else did the repairs. And few other insurance companies will want to take your property on after a Subsidence claim.)

It is all so awful. I pray the Ombudsman will find in my favour. That is also a long and stressful process to go through. 


HarryDavies, I am very sad to report that in my experience the Claims Handlers will try to seize on the easiest and most direct way to lower the claim. They will generally not take the position..... Oh X has happened, but maybe we should also look at Y.    And Y is very hard for us as homeowners to find out in the terms and conditions which are often brief and ambiguous. We are also not insurance experts. We can end up having to trawl through hundreds of Ombudsman's cases. I have had to do this for every step of the claim because I could sense what was going on, on many occasions. 

I will try to illustrate this with a more simple example... I do not have this issue myself....but take Matching Sets. If you do not have this in your policy, then each item will be considered separately as an individual item and only that will be replaced. 

There are Ombudsman's decisions where they rule in certain circumstances, that it is fair for the homeowner to get 50 percent of the whole set reimbursed. How many times would a Claims Handler be considering that aspect, if a homeowner does not protest and do their own research? 


youth_leader, I was so naive before I had the Insurance Claim. I had always thought that the Insurance Industry was there to help us when we were in a time of need. The Insurance Industry is a business enterprise. One must never forget that.

(My claim must have cost them so much more than if they had just done it properly.) 


THANKS to you both for listening. 

hypochondriac

Hi all hopefully someone can help me. I received a letter today from intelligent insurance to tell me that they could not offer me a renewal quote on my home insurance. Obviously this is very disappointing as I haven't made a claim, have paid on time consistently and my circumstances have not changed (other than I received slightly more income this year.) It says that the decision was made based on changes to their underwriting rules and that it should not affect me obtaining cover with another insurer. Presumably I have to declare this on any comparison sites even if its just an arbitrary decision from the company? Will this have a big impact on the quotes I receive? 

Annemos

Good afternoon. 

Has your property ever had Subsidence? 


I do not think you will have to declare this.... but to be sure, can you log your query as a separate Insurance Question. Then hopefully Sandtree will pick it up and reply to you. 

Ho ho, you have already done that. Good luck with the replies. 

(At any time Underwriters can change their rules and risk appetite. Is it near a flood risk area.)