Inusurer insists does not need to replace with matching tiles following water leak

[justwomblingalong]

Has anyone heard anything so ridiculous?

We had a water leak in the bathroom. Isolating and finding source meant that 2 or 3 large tiles were broken. Despite lots of searching I cannot find replacements in the same colour/shade. The insurer said 'they are not interested in aesthetics' and that they would replace with tiles and they could not be expected to match.

Contrast this, with the people who lived here previously, who had a water leak that damaged part of a wooden floor. They got all the floor replaced for us, including a connecting room, because it was impossible to match up.

Is it me or is the insurer being unreasonable?

They're been unreasonable. I'd threaten them with the ombudsman.

You'd need to read what it says in your insurance policy - I think it does depend how they've worded it. Though I agree they ought to replace the lot, they may not legally have to.

depends on your policy - if there is a 'matching sets' exclusion then they are right.

Yup depends on what the fine print of your policy says.
Of course reasonably they should replace them all but insurance companies are often good at minimising their payouts.
I would check though as they often seem to deny responsibility unless pushed.
I currently have a client having storm repairs with a rare no-limit policy and nearly everything is being replaced.

I used to work in home insurance and this is completley normal i'm afraid, every day I would tell people in your situation this and it never got any easier and I hated it. it will be in in the small print of your policy and taking them to the ombundsman wont make a blind bit of difference (dont mean to sound unsympathetic,honestly!)

As a result when I remodled my own bathroom I insisted on plain white tiles with just a patterned boarder.

I agree with others here, it's due the the "matching set" rule. As a PP says the ombudsman will uphold this decision, but you may be able to get some compensation if they mess you about in the repair.

This happened to my MIL with a hidden leak, the insurance company wouldn't pay for the damaged timbers under the floor as they said they wouldn't cover damp, despite the cause of that damp being the leak. The floor had to be taken up which meant the wall of the bathroom had to be removed and replaced. I was shocked that they could re-tile 2 of the walls but not the undamaged 2 so they matched.

We followed the complaint process with the insurance company then escalated to FOS (financial ombudsman). It's worth threatening to do this, as it costs the insurance company £500 for FOS to investigate even if their decision is upheld. So some companies would rather pay you off then go through the cost and effort of reporting to FOS if that would be cheaper for them.

In the end the ombudsman upheld the insurance companies decision on the tiles but not the timbers and ordered them to pay compensation for the stress and upset caused. Conveniently this covered the additional tilting cost so the bathroom matches.

Sorry that turned into an essay but I hope it helps!

All posts very helpful thank you. I am beginning to wonder why anyone ever takes out insurance, as it is only seems to pay out for a total disaster like a plane landing on your house! Do not know how previous occupants of our house got the floor re-done. It is not as if we are able to see the fine print when we choose house insurance! A big rip - off!

actually yes, you can see the fine print before you buy policies, and no, they don't only pay out when the house burns down. You are getting a pay out for this.

what the previous people got is irrelevant. Insurance is a business, not a rip-off, and with claims rising and prices falling they have to cut cloth accordingly. Huge numbers of houses built on flood plains has had a big effect.

make a feature of it with toning tiles and move on.

I think they mostly do have their small print online, though unless you read the whole thing through looking for these kinds of clauses you maybe aren't going to realise until this stage, when it's too late to decide to go with a different insurer.

Out of interest, I just went and checked mine online and found -

"This Policy does not insure loss or damage arising from or consisting of the following: ... any extra cost of altering or replacing any items or parts of items which are not lost or damaged and which form
part of a set, suite or other article, of the same type, colour or design including wall or floor coverings." so I would be in the same position as you if some of my bathroom tiles had been damaged.

Though in my case I would shout Hallelujah and get rid of the lot...

This is extremely unreasonable.

I do this regularly in my job, my firm project manages insurance reinstatement work to both commercial and residential properties.

They have a duty to put you back in the state prior to the escape of water.
Mis-matching tiles is not living up to that.

Why is your insurance dealing with this anyway? Haven't they appointed a surveyor to assess the damage and make a schedule of work?

Wow...reading other people's post this seems to happen a lot?

I'm genuinely shocked! we have a steady stream of work provided to us by a large loss adjusters company and we have never had this happen.

When we go in to assess, we would always seek to make the area match either new with old or replace the lot.

that's a bit grim. It may be in the small print but that doesn't make it a reasonable term - you are only asking to be put back to where you were. No wonder insurers have such a poor reputation - making good damage and reinstating the previous position is what most people assume insurance is for.

And when reading small print it's very difficult to imagine what sort of circumstances might arise that would be excluded by their tortuous wording. I personally would not assume one drop of wallpaper was part of a "matching set" but by this definition it would. And having one stripe in a room that's different to the rest would obviously look absurd but the insurer thinks it's acceptable!. Agree you might want to threaten the ombudsman and see if they decide to make you an offer.

Quangle In my (limited) experience they do not consider wallpaper to be a set and will re-decorate the whole room.

Always read the full policy document for any insurance you are signing up for. You can find policies that will cover full new for old and reinstatement etc but you will pay much more for them.

My current home insurance policy doesn't cover electrical items worth over £100 - so no mobile phones, laptop, tablets etc. The policy was significantly cheaper than others and I have taken the calculated risk - but at least I have made that decision based on knowledge.

If you are buying insurance on a comparison site and opt for the cheapest provider you may well find you don't get what you are expecting.

I think even if you did find the same tiles, they'd be from a different batch so the colour would be slightly wrong. (My experience.) Good luck!

Not quite the same but we had an issue with kitchen units. I think it depends on the insurer and also the individual at the insurance company you deal with. For us the first chap who came out said no. He left and was replaced with a 2nd chap who said fine. It's a fairly cheap policy but probably not the cheapest.

But in theory I think they can refuse to if you haven't got anything in your policy covering it. I also wonder whether if you've claimed before or not it has a bearing.

I can understand it myself. A lot of leaks happen in kitchens - if one cupboard's damaged and can't be replaced they'd have to fit a whole kitchen. In our case all the base units were damaged so they had to remove the tiles and the worksurface as well as the units. All of that was covered. But we ended up paying half for the wall cupboards to match as well as the excess obviously.

When I googled it it seemed to be a bit of a grey area. With some saying they'd been lucky, and others not.

Our leak was due to the water company so I'd have been on to them if we hadn't got it through the insurers.

My advice would be to keep asking.

To be fair insurance policies are a lot clearer than they used to be. There is no 'small print' - there is a list of things covered and a list of exclusions. Yes, it is boring to read through it all but it's all there, easily accessible online.

The matching sets exclusion is annoying and i can see why people get frustrated with it but it's a very common exclusion.

I had a coloured bathroom suite (whisper grey so not totally evil) and made a claim to replace the bath which had been damaged by a dropped tile. I thought they'd replace the whole suite in nice white, but no, I had to source a matching coloured bath which cost the insurance company more than a whole new white suite would have done!
ALWAYS read the small print. I renewed my home insurance recently and was amazed by some of the basic exclusions in cheaper policies - garden not included, damage to ceramics not included, really tight terms as to the locks needed on doors and windows etc...
I've unfortunately had to make a number of claims over the years and it does pay to get decent cover.
Keep looking for matching tiles. I would be surprised if there wasn't a tile matching company out there.

The moral of this particular tale is:
Whenever you have new tiles installed, always buy an extra couple of boxes of them to keep as spares in case any get broken.

When we had our bathroom done up 7 years ago, I bought 4 additional loo seats, so that I would have spares for when the original one needed replacing. I have used one already!