Home insurance - is this normal?

[Wintermonster]

We had a major leak at home that's caused damage to flooring downstairs and some areas of the kitchen.

This happened 4 weeks ago.

Since then we have had people come each week to survey and to remove damaged items and to put in drying equipment.

So far we have not seen the same person more than once, it seems that it's being handled with by 4 different companies, and each time we are being asked the same questions and saying the same things each time and don't seem to be any further along.

I have been told that a surveyor is visiting tomorrow and another company is coming on Tuesday to collect more damaged items.

More people i haven't yet met and each time I'm expected to take time off work to wait in for them.

I'm no closer to getting anything put back in or for anyone telling me what they are going to do to put things back to normal again.

I have had terrible experiences with trades coming into my home before and the more strangers coming into my house the more I'm feeling anxious.

Is this standard practise for insurance companies or should I be raising this as an issue?

If it’s any consolation we had to wait 2 years for a replacement carpet on one incident.

In our 2nd incident it took them 2.5 years to replace one broken shower tray.

Bloody Swinton & Homeserve.

Needless to say I would never ever use either again.

Speaking from personal experience, I would say yours so far is as bad as mine. Sorry

We did formalise a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman about both.

@Sillysallys sorry you've been through it all too.

What tipped you over the edge to report it to the onbudsmen?

Was there any reason yours took so long to go through?

I'm mostly worried because I have a young toddler with breathing difficulties (has been hospitalised for it before) my DH has asthma (not that badly though) and the machinery and bear brick walls from stripping off plaster is meaning there is dust in the air at all times.
Not to mention the mould that's appeared because of the leak.

I mentioned all of this on their initial visit and they just keep telling me it will be ok and will get sorted.

My high chair was damaged in the leak (the only expensive item that was as it's a tripp trapp), but is still usable and I'm using it daily to feed my child and now I've been told that they are coming to collect it this week to strip it back and relacquer it.

They tell me it will be like new. Which is wonderful, but I'm going to now be without it and when I mentioned that they said they would only have it for a few weeks tops.

I'm wondering if I'm being unreasonable in thinking they should be minimising the level of inconvenience

The insurance companies just didn’t want to pay out so sought quote after quote after quote then argued and argued and argued with every quote that came in, disputed everything the tradesmen said and recommended.

We gave it 12 months in each case before we logged complaints at the FO but even though they were found to be not up to the expected standard they both still used as many tactics as they could.

In the end with the shower tray we ended up buying it ourselves and having it fitted independently once the insurance company signed to say they would reimburse.

@Sillysallys this is one of my main concerns. The house was only fitted out 18 months ago, I put in the best kitchen, carpet and flooring I could afford at the time and each person who visits tell me il be given a credit at a shop and can therefore choose something different this time.
I keep telling them I don't want different, I want the same.

I've already done the leg work getting out the same people from last time to quote for replacements but I'm so anxious about the potential fight il have on my hands to get them to agree to it.

I suspect they will advise you to live out while the work is done if health is at risk.

Our house was less than 12 months old at the time of our issues so we contacted NHBC who also wouldn’t help because the issues weren’t structural.

I’m afraid the fact that everything was to your taste and virtually new in the scheme of things counts for absolutely nothing (in my experience)

I wish I could help you in a more productive way. At the moment you haven’t got a ‘big’ battle, it can’t be escalated just yet.