To ask for a hand hold. We lost our home.

[notgreatthanks]

We have had a house fire. We weren't there and are all ok. We have lost the majority of our belongings, we were visiting family so had a suitcase of clothes/toiletries . We are staying there until accommodation can be sorted in our home town. It was upstairs so some of down stairs may be salvageable although some has smoke damage but need to wait till it's been assessed . It's just unreal we have gone from having normal everyday lives to losing our home within a few hours. We are lucky to have family support and that we are all ok but all our stuff is gone (memories etc. we don't know if it will all be covered on insurance yet and there's stuff that's irreplaceable. Nothing anyone can do just want to share.

@notgreatthanks ours was caused in a similar manner.

Unfortunately @Maybebabyno2 picking out new / replacement items can be awful. All you want is your original things. I remember walking round Wickes trying to pick new tiling for our en suite and just sobbing. The whole experience is so horribly overwhelming. There really are no positives.

Telling people was also awful. So many people would say something like “oh how awful, if it was me I’d go and stay with my parents”. Which, when your mum is dead, and you’re living in a travelodge because no one else can put you up, is a horribly insensitive thing to hear.

One of the hardest things is that there is so little real life emotional support, as most people haven’t experienced anything similar. People don’t understand. They try and find any positives they can and hope to make you feel better by pointing out that no one was hurt. It reminded me of when my mum died and someone said I should be grateful that I’ve still got my dad.

The insurers (well the salvage and cleaning company) will often return written off items that may be sentimental, so you can decide whether to keep it anyway, eg children's drawings.

@Lemons1571 thank you I feel very similar. We are currently staying with family but it's not practical as it's a long commute to school so looking for rented accommodation.

Huge hug and handhold. I hope you find somewhere to be while it’s all sorted. 💐💐

Good heavens

your insurance surely entitled you go Alternative Accommodation?

@Ohthatsexciting yes just waiting to be placed

They should have placed you from day 1. Or did you say you wanted to stay with friends?

@Ohthatsexciting our son is disabled so we chose to live with family for familiarity but it's only temporary. In hindsight that was a mistake as insurance company saying now we have to find a suitable rental and we are struggling because it's a six month rental. plus we have a dog.

Oh my god, this is terrible. I am so sorry for you. Can't imagine the heartbreak. I would hug you if I could.

Our insurance went with a 1 year rental with a 6 month break clause. They also were quite reasonable with the rent they were allowing, which meant we could offer above the desired rental amount which swung it in our favour.

It's not a palace, but it's good enough.

They also rented all of our furniture for us, including kitchen equipment.

The only downside was we had to be the deposit out of our own pocket, but we'll get that back.

Pay the deposit

@scorpio32 yes we have to pay deposit too. Luckily we have savings. Can't imagine what it would be like for those who don't.

We had a house fire that started upstairs when I was 6. Won’t lie, I still remember how awful it was. I still remember my mum screaming with shock on the phone when my dad called her to tell her. (My sister and I were on holiday with our grandma at the time) All we had was a suitcase of clothes. My dad had been out at the time. Apparently our next door neighbour kicked down the front door as he thought we were in there, some people are so good.

Anyway, we had to move out for at least 6 months while everything was rebuilt. I remember how badly it stank and it was like there Was just smoke particles everywhere. There was ash on every surface, it was horrid.

Sorry to sound so down but trying to prepare you for what it might be like when you get in there.

Feeling scared tonight. I didn't realise but the insurance haven't signed off on the claim yet. They are waiting for fire report which they should get back tomorrow. They have set ball rolling for getting us accommodation and offered us an advance on contents money so I assumed everything ok. But what if they find a loophole and refuse to pay out?

Any advice or thoughts would be greatly received.

That’s just to check it wasn’t suspicious. They won’t pay out if it was arson for example. Our pay out came within a few days of the claim but we got the fire report on the night.

So it's typical to wait for it then? It's been 11 days not sure why it's took so long

It was an electrical faulty item so sure it's an accident but feel like insurance company will look to get out of it.

I guess I'm uneasy as they keep messing us around

I'm so sorry.

11 days is nothing. Ours took weeks and it was clearly arson and the police confirmed it immediately. 11 days is nothing.

Trust me, the one thing you’ll learn from this is that insurance companies do nothing fast and it’s immensely frustrating.

Do you have a claims consultant to help? We used Harris Balcombe. They take a % cut of the final contents payout at the end, so depends on what you think your claim is and whether it’s worthwhile. But they do all the liaison with insurance etc so took a lot of the headaches out of it for us.

The wait is horrible when you are already dealing with so much!

I’m so sorry to read this. I agree with others 11 days without insurance confirming doesn’t sound like it means something is ‘wrong’ with your claim. Just insurance companies moving slow.

How devastating for you. House fires are much less common than they used to be but they do still happen. Chargers seem to be commonly involved.

Try to take things one day at a time.

Handhold and hug x

It's pretty standard to wait for the fire report before confirming cover. The fire needs to be fortuitous, ie not caused by you for the purposes of the claim. In most policies that's the only real caveat where fire is concerned, so I really would not worry about that (easier said than done).