To think the insurance company shouldn’t be causing me this much stress after a fire?

[FireAdvice]

So had a massive garden fire in May. Thankfully the house was undamaged but we lost the garden office and sheds and all contents. I still have received no payment for the contents. The insurance have accepted the claim and say I’m fully covered, like for like, old for new, etc.

They sent a disaster firm out to clear the site. Apparently careful lists of stuff which was damaged beyond repair was taken before they removed it. Plus a list of stuff removed to see if it can be restored. The latter list was mainly electrical stuff like laptop, smart monitor.

and then things have gone very quiet. I have chased , emails go ignored. I’ve uploaded photos to the portal, etc. provided links of how much stuff will cost to replace.

so at the weekend I left a shitty review on TrustPilot that got things moving. Phone call today. Which to be honest stressed me out more. He wants me to provide receipts for my bikes. Well I can for one but not for the other. He tells me to go back to the shop and ask them to go through their records and find paperwork. Or me look through bank statements. It was years since I bought it, I can’t remember how many years. I have photos of the bike (with me sat on it) with the brand very obvious, they only make one model of bike (it’s expensive). I have a quote for a new bike. If I have old for new why do they need a receipt from when I bought it ten years ago? They could see the remains of the frame (with the make on it) in the ashes.

Then there is the multitude of stuff which you could see remnants of in the ashes, lawnmower, hedge trimmer, bbq, eglu chicken coop. Rather oddly the disaster company haven’t listed these…..well they removed them. So as far as the insurance company are concerned they didn’t exist! Thankfully I took a video of me raking through the ashes before the site was cleared so I should be able to prove the majority of it.

I’ve still no idea of whether my electrical stuff is retrievable. Been without a laptop for months now!

Haven’t been able to cut my grass for months! Haven’t been able to go on a bike ride in months and I used to be out 3 x a week. I cried on the phone to the insurance today. I’ve paid a lot of money and never claimed in 25 years of having insurance and never thought it would be this bad sorting it.

is this normal for insurance claims? The dawdling and the difficulty in proving stuff?

I haven’t even got onto the topic of stuff of which there was no sign of in the fire such as my surfboard or gortex jackets.

Your reading the schedule I believe there which sets out limits and details of the cover, it's to be read in conjunction with the policy book. As I read the book your cycles are to be covered up to £4500 anywhere including at home. If there is a confusing or contradictory policy wording the rule is always to find in favour of the customer.
You are covered to £4500. That's how it reads it could be in a locked building in outer Mongolia or your house,...it's still £4500

Oh God is she a dame now? Her and her designer shoes that she flaunts at staff on much lower wages.
I have painful experiences of her from the front line in the past

To be honest I think I’d rather let sleeping dogs lie.

Oh God is she a dame now? Her and her designer shoes that she flaunts at staff on much lower wages.
I have painful experiences of her from the front line in the past

Thank you. And would it be £4500 total. Or if I have 2x £4500 bikes would it be 9k?

£4500 per bike, or rather the new value of the same or similar bikes today. That can be an issue. Remember when dvd players first came out they were mega bucks...then quite quickly the price dropped and you could get a really good one for £250? But with bikes I know that the price for quality handmade/top end bikes new stays roughly the same. So you will be covered on an old for new basis (unless your policy wording talks about indemnity or deductions for wear and tear which I doubt)

Thank you. The cost of new bikes of the same make and model has actually increased slightly since I bought them. One is only a couple of years old, the other is older but has not dropped in price.

We had a house fire a couple of years ago, obviously more complicated because we couldn’t live there. It took a year to sort all of it but the buildings elements took longer. We were allocated a loss adjuster immediately who visited within days of the claim. The company who dealt with the contents took about two months to go through through it all and estimate prices. We then had to agree or challenge the prices (with proof if over £10) A rough time line was -
fire - jan
restoration company started on contents - feb
finshed itemising/separating contents - may
Agreed offer (after some negotiations) -June
pay out - July
ours was also old for new. Tbh most things we got slightly more than we paid for. So for example dds make up pallettes cost £45 but are now £50 so we got £50. The only things we lost out on were electrical items as they tend to lose value.

We were with a cheap unheard of company but tbh they were pretty good.

Tag them on social media. Vent. They respond quickly then.

@autienotnaughty sorry you had that, a house fire must be 100x worse. When you say proof of anything over £10 do you mean proof you owned the item? Or a link to show how much a replacement would cost?

In fairness my new claims manager seems good and on it. I’m happy to let him try and sort it now he’s in charge.

I bought a decentish bike in about the year 2000, I've done thousands of miles on it. Looked for a new one from similar reputable companies and it was a couple of hundred less...but I've replaced 12 spokes on one wheel and had 3 punctures!! Mind you I've done at least a thousand miles in the 18mths

Ideally a receipt but a link if not. We had some receipts but not many.
it was honestly completely surreal we got home one day and couldn’t enter the house. We were out of the house for about a year in total we lived with the in-laws for the first 6 weeks until they sorted us a rental (which was fab tbf) we lost roughly 80% of our belongings and the entire house was redecorated,carp ts, floorings , bathrooms . The kitchen was the only room that didn’t take any damage (it was underneath the room the fire started in)
it was nice seeing the house decorated in the colours we chose and new furniture we picked. When we moved back everything was brand new.
Now it seems like some weird nightmare.

Hope you get sorted soon and yes it does make you think about how much you insure things for. Our buildings claim was fine but we were about 8k from the max limit on our contents. We weren’t sure if we would get everything we needed.

@autienotnaughty so if you didn’t have a receipt for something did they refuse to pay? Think I’m going to start saving all online order confirmations in a separate yahoo email folder so I can always find them!

No they paid out everything. Now that I think about it, receipts were only for things bought in the last 12 months as it was old for new. We had an itemised list of all our belongings that we had priced up, they sent an offer which was about 10k below what we had estimated the total cost to be, we then had to go through and show why their estimations were wrong (using links, the stuff we had receipts for had already been agreed) we got them up about another 8k on their original offer. The agreed offer was within 3k of what we thought it should be.

We had no receipts. They still paid up. Similar situation to house fire above.

We had to do an inventory. I still have nightmares now about those 30 pages of Excel with estimated costs. They gave us pretty much what was on there.

The house cost £120 k to repair and contents were £110 k.

I can imagine. My spreadsheet is only one page with an gazillion different columns and I’m traumatised by it.

Yes same literal about 30 pages. It took hours.

OP, I remember your thread soon after the event. Sadly, no help to give but I wonder whether some of the problem is that your insurance company is having to cover the whole cost because your idiot neighbour wasn't insured and they can't recoup from them.
I do hope you get this sorted soon but can recommend an email to the CEO if things drag on again.

Did you insure the bikes separately? Like you do a car or pieces of jewellery? Do they exceed the item limit? They were presumably insured against theft?

Yes. They don’t exceed the item limit, they were insured separately and against theft. But in an outbuilding with a 2.5k limit.

so he was querying whether they could pay the item limit but I’ve had an email yesterday saying they’re recommending payment For both bikes in full and then to my max outbuilding limit, my max garden items limit and then anything else which could be added onto the business insurance limit from that pot.

sounds hopeful if the claims manager has asked for approval. I’m on tenterhooks 😁

Good news then

Money has been approved and should be in my account tomorrow.

In other news the neighbour who started the fire is apparently ignoring all communication from both my insurance company and my other neighbour's insurance company.

I know with car insurance it doesn't matter as the insurance companies can look up on a database but what about house insurance? Surely he can't get away with it by just ignoring letters?

What will happen is either the Insurers will give up OR they will send a 'letter before action' to start Court Proceedings.

If the neighbours dont reply then they can end up on 'Dont Pay We Will Take It Away' or potentially losing the house.

Now you have the money perhaps time to chase The Police?

@FireAdvice Was the fire started deliberately or a fault? Are they actually insured? Some people aren’t. Is that a possibility? The insurance companies cannot always cover their losses.