Mrs C’s father experienced a catastrophic property fire. The fire had started in a bedroom, causing extensive heat damage to the windows, ceiling and walls, and had quickly spread throughout his property, affecting his entire maisonette home with heavy soot and smoke damage.
Unfortunately Mrs C’s father died during the fire.
At the same time as dealing with the blow of losing a parent in such tragic circumstances, the devastated couple also had had to try and sort out claiming on his house insurance.
They assumed their insurance company would be fair, supportive and would assist them to ensure the maisonette was put back into a liveable state as quickly as possible, so they could try and get on with their lives.
This was not the case.
Mr and Mrs C, in their own words ‘were lost’ and ‘didn’t know what to do’. They had probate on the property to sort out as well. They had no assistance at all from the insurance company, who refused to assist or even deal with them until after probate. They contacted a series of restoration companies themselves, to give them quotes for the works that would be required to put the property back to the way it was.
Weeks went by, then the insurance company contacted them to suggest a test for asbestos was required – and that they should arrange – and pay for it.
Months later, after probate had been sorted out, they were finally allowed to put forward the claim properly with the Insurance Company.
But the delays and excuses continued to pile up.
This time, the Insurance Company advised them that they needed to arrange to have the contents of the flat cleared – at their own expense – before they could consider a claim.
Not knowing that they shouldn’t have to do this, or that there was any other option, the couple arranged this.
A well-known restoration company charged them nearly £1500 for removing the contents of the bedroom, the fridge, and a few bits from the lounge and bathroom.
The insurance company then suggested that the same company, although not a firm of builders, should continue as the contractor for the repair work required.
The restoration company would be employed by – and paid by, the insurance company. They would be liaising directly with, and working at the direction of, the loss adjuster at the insurance company – whose job is to keep claims costs as low as possible.
They would not be – in any way – working on behalf of Mr and Mrs C
…This became more and more evident as months rolled by.
Initial efforts were made to simply ‘clean’ the bathroom suite and kitchen. Of course, cleaning would be much cheaper for the insurance company, but due to the extent of soot and smoke damage this was not realistic.
Over a year later, things had not moved forward at all. Mr and Mrs C were chasing both the restoration company and the insurance company on a weekly basis, to be told they ‘would have to be patient’ and everything was ‘in hand’. Eventually, the restoration company submitted a report to the Insurance company advising that the cleaning efforts were on the whole, unsuccessful, and that (ironically) ‘due to the length of time since the incident’, reparation costs would be higher.
The insurance company emailed Mr and Mrs C to say that they now accepted that the bathroom suite and kitchen needed replacing, but that as they believed that ‘some of the tiles had been cracked before the fire, they would be subtracting the cost of these from the tile replacement costs’. Incredible!
Finally, the constant uncaring and unhelpful attitude of the Insurance company, combined with the huge delays in getting anything done and the stress of fighting them over every tiny detail, became too much. In desperation, Mr and Mrs C turned to Simon for assistance.
For the first time, they had someone on their side.
A company who knew what they were entitled to, who knew how the property should be repaired – and who knew what they shouldn’t have to pay for.
Simon’s team looked at the history of the claim, the charges that had been made to the couple, the incredible delays and the overall way in which the claim had been ‘dealt’ with.
Simon’s team brought in an independent surveyor, who quickly provided an unbiased report on how the reparation should be done. The team liaised with the Insurance company on behalf of Mr and Mrs C and within a matter of weeks the property had been reinstated – properly and professionally.
Mrs and Mrs C had also been reimbursed the £1500 that had been wrongly charged to them, as Simon had forced the Insurance Company to pick up the bill (as they should have done from the outset).
