Help! Should I claim on home insurance for this?

[BahNotSomethingElseNow]

Hi everyone - hoping for some advice/experiences on this. Long story short, the toilet in our downstairs/cloakroom bathroom was leaking (the stopcock wasn't working properly which meant water was overflowing) and as it's all boxed off, we didn't know until we noticed paint bubbling on the wall outside the cloakroom, and the flooring starting to lift.

I contacted Esure (our home insurance provider) and between the excess of £100, the voluntary excess of £150, and an "escape of water" excess of £450, the total excess payable is £700!!!

I've never made an insurance claim before and now I'm wondering if it's even worth it. We could get a plumber to replace the toilet for about £300, and we'd planned to install new flooring anyway. Maybe we should just go ahead and sort it ourselves? As well as the £700 excess, I'm worried that the cost of our home insurance in future will rocket because we've made a claim.

Any advice/experiences? Thank you!

They are also likely to increase excess or even exclude water damage on renewal - personally I would just arrange it yourself unless the flooring you have down is expensive to replace

I would probably just pay and get it sorted without going through the insurance, if there's not much difference in cost. Like you say, it's what happens to future cost of home insurance. Which is wrong! But it's a factor.

Beware of them upping your premium next year and if you have to shop around you will have to declare a recent claim.

It's possible that even if you don't claim your premiums will go up anyway because now they know you have had "an insurable event".

A few years ago my hot water tank burst due to a faulty pressure release valve, we had boiling hot water pouring through ceilings and out of plug sockets two floors below!

We decided not to claim due to the excess, but our premiums went up anyway. It makes no sense at all because now everything has been fixed we are less likely to need to claim again, but that's how the system works.

Thanks everyone - I think we'll sort it ourselves.

Makes me so angry, though - this is a genuine claim and exactly what I thought home insurance is for