Insurance compensation - how much?..apologies for offence caused by previous thread

[risottogroupon]

After the last thread was deleted due to an infelicity of expression on my part, for which I apologise, the actual question of what compensation is reasonable remains.

I didn't get a chance to copy my previous post sans offensive term but in a nutshell:

After a leak I will be 8 months without a kitchen. All delays due to insurers. Temp kitchen is outside and means I cant use my driveway.

I saw reference to delay in payment in one of the responses before thread went however that's not on all fours with my situation as here the insurers are doing the work. They have offered compensation I'm struggling with what's reasonable. How much is no kitchen for 8 months worth?

T

I know that in car insurance claims loss of use of a vehicle used to be compensated at £50-100 a week, if you didn't have an alternative vehicle. Obviously I have got an alternative kitchen just outside my house and inconvenient. So clearly I cant expect that much. Maybe £25 a week although that would equate to £800 which seems a lot. Although it is probably less than my insurers have paid to store all my belongings so far.

What was the "infelicity of expression" ?

Oh...and what was your question again ?

How much have they offered?

If they've stored everything and provided a usable kitchen; I think you'll be looking at closer to £10 than £25 - your hardship has been mitigated as much as possible.

So they’ve asked you to come back with a figure? Let them propose the figure after you list your difficulties and see if that’s agreeable to you or not

I wanna know what the naughty word was!

They've offered an amount which includes my actual costs (additional electricity, phone calls etc) but the sheer inconvenience is hard to fathom unless you've been in this situation. I lived with a makeshift kitchen for a long time some years ago but it was indoors.

Also this whole thing should have been finished well before now if the insurers and their contractors hadn't caused so much delay. As it stands we're looking at November at the earliest. And as i still don't have a schedule of works I've no idea if it will be even longer than that.

I've been offered £300.

I don’t have any experience of this but £300 would not be anywhere near enough to compensate for 8 months without a kitchen and drive! It’s the heart of our home and where we spend most of our time I honestly can’t imagine coping for that long

sorry, I didn't see the original thread but how much delay have you suffered? Under the new provisions of the Insurance Act, you now have a damages claim against your insurer if they have accepted your claim as valid under the policy but have not, for whatever reason, actually paid up.

Unless you can specify specific costs and put a price on the emotional cost to you, I would be inclined to triple the offer they made you and negotiate from there with an aim to getting to double the offer they have made.

I work in insurance though not in personal lines.

Yes its our kitchen/diner and dining room that are affected. We have a table in the temp kitchen but in this hot weather it's been unusable. We can't have visitors because the house is in chaos.

The drying (which took a couple of weeks longer than it should have) was completed 2 months ago. They should have started the plastering immediately after that, and then decorated & put kitchen back so it should have been finished at the latest by mid July. So it's delayed at least 3-4 months from the latest it should have been done.

I can't be precise with dates because despite asking many times the insurers can't or won't give me a timetable or schedule of works.