To argue with insurance company?

[whattoexpectnow]

I’ve never dealt with any of this before, so don’t know if I’m getting fobbed off or not.
Without going into detail and outing myself, we’ve recently had a lot of damage done to lots of our belongings.
The person that did the damage is insured and their insurance company has agreed to take on full liability for the claim.
The insurance company has asked us to photograph approx 40 of our broken belongings and also find screenshots of similar items so they can gauge the price.
This is taking forever.
Also, instead of wanting to pay the full amount of the broken belongings they are trying to pay us a percentage, as lots of things aren’t unusable, but are still damaged.
An example of this is a pushchair wheel was buckled in the damage, insurance company are saying they will pay 10% of the damaged pushchair so £50 of the £500 cost.
If they do this for every item I’ll be running round like a headless chicken trying to take things all over the place to get repaired.
Is this right or should they accept full liability for the damaged items?
They won’t send an assessor out, but want us to document the damage and estimate of costs, but then they are haggling with us re paying out.
Surely this is really unfair that none of this was my fault and they’ll only pay out a percentage of each item?
Other things have dents and scratches and other damage. What use is 10% of an item when I’ll have to find a repairer and then ferry things round getting them repaired?
Hard to explain, but for example a dining table with scratches on, they want to pay 10% of the cost of the table and for me to find and transport a table to a furniture repair place to get it repaired with the £40 they are suggesting.
It’s ridiculous.

We had a lot of items damaged in an international move, the shipping insurance tried this on and I complained and complained and complained and in the end they got their arses in gear and settled on my terms.

It’s just a pain in the arse that I’m expected to complain and complain.
I’m just annoyed as none of this is my fault and they’re making it so bloody difficult.

Go to your insurance company and ask advice, it may be better claiming that way. It will affect your premiums but not in the same way as car insurance. I had two claims in two years a very large water leak (claimed £24k and burglary claimed £10k) but my cost hasn't gone up substantially although both insurers put extras on policy I.e excess for water claims increased and I needed to change my doors if I wanted to stay with same insurer.

If you don't go down this route then write a formal complaint. Items broken like prom and jumperoo need replaced. I would insist on a assessor coming out too. Make sure you state in your compliant that you are aware of the process of the ombudsman and intend on pursuing that option if this compliant isn't defat with quickly.

Yeah you need to be forceful and keep complaining. It's night or fair and you may be entitled to claim compensation for the stress they have put you under. I managed to with my water leak which was a steep learning curve and I wish I was more assertive in the first place.

The claim is against the builder dor negligence if he has negligently damaged your property and the claim against him isb for the full amount of your loss. He should be paying any difference between what the amount of your loss is and the amount he insured for.

Hi OP

If you're claiming off someone else's insurance (the builders insurance in this scenario) you are claiming on their Public Liability policy for damage to third party property. You are technically claiming for compensation due to replace or repair damaged property if the builder was negligent and this negligence damaged it. Legally, it is down to you to prove firstly that the builder was negligent (did something a reasonable builder wouldn't have done, or didn't do something that a reasonable builder would have done). This should be straightforward given the extent of the damage. And secondly to prove the extent of the financial loss you've suffered. They could just make an offer and write you a cheque to estimate it all but you're claiming for compensation so you do need to have an idea of what you need to be compensated for. It works like car insurance - if someone damaged your 10 year old fiesta you would get it repaired or replaced with a 10 year old fiesta not a new one. If you got given a brand new one this would leave you in a better position than before which would encourage more people to claim. Unfortunately you are not their customer, legally they are just paying you the money the builder would have to pay you to correct the damage if you sued him. They wouldn't send out a claims investigator for household PL claim normally unless the damage was say over 5k. Arguing with the insurer may increase your payment but they aren't really obliged to do anything more than their doing as long as the amount of the settlement is fair.

Go through your own insurance. Your contract with them is specifically for damage to your property and is likely to be new for old, so if somwthing is damaged beyond reasonable repair you get a new one. they may also have contacts to repair things like furniture. They may send out a loss adjuster as they are set up differently to commercial PL insurers and will have a lower threshold for this.

I hope this makes sense!

Ok.
That makes sense now.
I think I need to go through my home insurers instead then!
Thank you.

Oh and what might happen especially as the Third Party Insurers have already admitted liability, is your home insurance will pay you then claim back from the other insurer so it may not be shown as the full amount of the claim on your home insurance records

Also just be aware if you were having any structural work on your property there may be something in your policy to say you should have notified insurers before it started

Can I change my mind halfway through a claim and decide to go through my insurers instead of their own?

And it was nothing structural so hopefully didn’t need to inform them.

Their policy isn't new for old and if you are claiming under their policy you don't have much choic in the matter. You would be better claiming from your insurer and they will claim from the other insurance company.

Yes you can. You don't need to tell them straight away, it's not unusual when there is a lot of back and forth for things to go quiet for a while. You should tell your insurers what's gone on though as they may want to eventually claim from the others. And then tell the builders insurance if your insurers agree to pay you - the only thing you are not allowed to do is accept a claim payment from both. So if say the builders insurer randomly sent you a cheque for 100 you'd have to tell your own insurers and they would take this off your settlement.

Your home insurance probably has an excess, I think you may be able to pursue getting this from the builders insurance ans possibly your own insurers may help with this (uninsured excess recovery type thing) but you'll have to speak to them about the detail

Yes our home insurance said they can try and claim the excess back.
I’ve only ever claimed for a £300 bed before on our house insurance, we spilt a pot of paint on it whilst decorating. And this was 10 or so years ago. I remember them being very helpful though and not quibbling over it.
Unlike the other insurers this time round. Although these items will be in their thousands rather than £300 I suppose.