Anyone claimed on house insurance?

[troppibambini]

We have had a leak from our bathroom through into the hall and after taking advice form a plumber we have decided to claim on our house insurance as it's caused quite a bit of damage and we could possibly end up needing all the tiles ripping out and replacing and repairing the damage to the ceiling downstairs and there is a possibility the joists maybe damaged too.
Someone is coming out to asses on Thursday and I was just wondering how do we go about getting the work done?
Do we find our own tradesmen/women or does the insurance company provide people?
Sorry if it's a stupid question but I have no experience at all off this and at the moment I'm feeling totally overwhelmed by it all.

I claimed on my home emergency cover the other day. They sent someone to assess the works and give a quote. The quote was (in my view) insane and way beyond my excess so I asked if I could book my own tradesman and be reimbursed, which they said was fine.

The cost of the intial call out was taken from my excess but luckily the cost of the second tradesman - a good 10x less than what the one the insurance sent quoted - still kept it below.

Not in the current house but in our last house our water tank was in the loft and flooded through the ceiling. The insurance company came to check the damage and we booked our own workman - a chap we'd used previously doing work on the house, and the insurance paid his invoice. It's generally quite straightforward.

Way beyond excess is immaterial. You pay the excess whatever the claim. So if your excess is £200 and the quote is £2000 or £10,000 you still pay £200 excess.

We have claimed for an under flour heating leak - new heating pipes, removal of old floor and laying new floor then redecorating. They agreed a lump sum which although they itemised, we spent as we wished. We said the redecoration sum was too low so got it upped due to size of room. They gave a good sum for the floor though. So win win for us.

So look closely at what they offer. Is it enough? We found contractors and I think that’s normal. You will pay the excess but make absolutely sure it covers repairs, making good and all redecoration. Not just patching.

Keep a record of all details about this transaction, if you want to change
insurers in the future they will ask for all of the details which can stay on record for 3 - 5 years.

Sorry wrong terminology @my0my, way beyond whatever it's called when we wouldn't have to dig into our own pockets (beyond paying for the insurance initially). Think Home Emergency cover is different from Home Insurance in that regard though, as it was an additional policy.

Thanks that really useful hopefully it will be quite straightforward then. I have a tiler that has been highly recommended coming to tile my kitchen (completely un related) and he can do the bathroom job too and with out too much delay so fingers crossed the assessor agrees with what he thinks needs doing.

Sorry should have added it will cost way more than our excess so have resigned ourselves to paying that.

Some claims have a limit. You are insured for a maximum of £x amount for a particular type of claim. I think pp meant this.

You should only pay the excess. How much is that?

Aah sorry misunderstood, at first we did a track and trace claim which was to find where the leak was coming from and would cover us up to £5k for any damage caused finding the leak. Now the claim has progressed to repairing the water damage and we don't have a limit for that.
When I said "we are resigned to paying that" I meant the excess which is £350.