Lent: Give Up Handling Your Own Home Insurance Claim

What have you given up for Lent this year? Chocolate? Alcohol? That very unhealth daily packet of crisps? That’s all very admirable but perhaps what you should have given up, if you’ve suffered property damage through flooding, Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, or some other impact like a fire, water leak or vehicle impact, is the chore of negotiating your own home insurance claim.

That’s not just because it is a chore, but let’s start with that. When Blondie sang about ‘Hanging on the Telephone’, we’re not sure they were referencing trying to get through to insurers’ claims departments, but it’s certainly an apt tune for describing what happens.

If you’re at work 9 to 5, do you really have time to try to get through, or have the desire to try your boss’s patience as you disappear or go off grid for extended periods of time, whilst you seek to make those calls? If you’re elderly or not confident on the phone, do you really want to be doing this, getting stuck within automated systems that frequently cut you off?

It all just eats into the time and can cause your frustration levels to soar. When property damage is often all about stress anyway, not getting the answers you want is not what you need. Why do it, when there’s a free-of-charge service that can take the strain of handling your own home insurance claim?

Of course, if it’s just a little bit of damage to a few roof tiles, or carpet ruin due to an overturned paint pot, it’s not going to be too hard for you to sort that out. What we’re really talking about here is damage that’s caused some biggish loss, perhaps to a few different aspects of the home.

It’s probably on a scale from the water leak in the bathroom that’s infiltrated the lounge, and the washing machine that’s flooded the kitchen, right up to the full-scale flood from external forces, that worrying property subsidence and the fire that’s spread through a room or two – or maybe even the whole house. In-between, there may be the wall that was hit by the HGV and the malicious damage caused by burglars.

Aside from the stress and time commitment, the other really good reason to give up negotiating your own property insurance claim – and letting experts like Property Claim Assist do it instead, free of charge – is that you are most probably not a property insurance expert. You haven’t been to jargon-land to learn all the insurance terminology and you don’t know the small print inside out, or have a clue what it all means. The trouble is that the person you are up against – the insurer’s loss adjuster – has been to jargon land, speaks the lingo and has got the small-print T-shirt.

Think of it as an amateur entering the ring with Mohammed Ali. Your arguments are just likely to get knocked down, time and again, if there is the slightest bit of ‘grey area’ involved. Unless you can categorically prove you are entitled to something, you are not likely to be offered it. Why? Because the loss adjuster who comes to review your damage is actually paid by the insurer and they are not typically paid by the insurer to make sure that you get the full entitlement from your policy, as that would mean having to give you the highest possible claim pay out.

That matters to the insurer, as there is never enough money set aside to pay out all claims in full. They need to curb costs and the loss adjuster is there to adjust the size of the claim down. The way to do that is to make a claimant compromise, or not offer the full entitlement that the policy wording should provide, or to turn down the claim altogether. Of course, some claims are turned down with good justification. The problem is that others are not and many many more are only paying out a proportion of what the policy bought by the homeowner should actually provide, in terms of compensation for losses.

So, giving up negotiating your own claim means you can get your own heavyweight to enter the ring for you and fight your corner. With more knowledge, experience and time to carry out the negotiations, the chances of you gaining your rightful entitlement are more than likely going to be enhanced. With no stress, no eating into your time and no niggling doubts that you are being short-changed.

Furthermore, the long-term health of your property may benefit. Having your own property claim negotiator – or loss assessor as they are known – will ensure that you have someone who knows about property damage putting your claim together. They will know if that flood water is likely to have caused unseen damage that has not been addressed. They will recognise where a corner is being cut and where you are being asked to accept a repair with a lower grade of material or workmanship. You may not.

But let’s go back to the free-of-charge part. This negotiation and what’s known as loss assessing service can be offered at no charge to you, if you use the vetted contractors who work with the loss assessor. Amazingly, some see that as a negative.

Just think about it. These are contractors who are trusted and vetted, not people you are pulling off the streets. You are not going to have all the hassle of getting tradespeople to call, view the damage and then quote, so your schedule will not be disrupted and you won’t have the frustration when they don’t show up. More importantly, you will not fall prey to cowboy builders.

All in all, it all adds up to every reason to give up negotiating your own property insurance claim for Lent. Do that, and you will have caught up with all those who have already realised it’s the way to go with a property insurance claim, because they’ve either been through the mill before, or have got nowhere with a recent claim until they called upon a Property Claim Assist loss assessor. You will also have caught up with our friends in the USA, who long realised that you cannot expect to gain a fair deal in a negotiation in which the odds are stacked against you from day one.

Knowledge is power, as they say. If you have a fair-to-middling-sized or large claim and need negotiation and property repairs knowledge in your corner, from trusted loss assessors, known simply by the first names of Gary and Simon to those who have worked with them and praised their services to the hilt, just get in touch.

Call us on 0333 577 2720 and you should be able to give up your own property claims negotiating at any time of year, not just Lent.