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Hello,
Hopefully somebody can help or direct me to an appropriate invoice...
I live in a development of flats where I also look after the day-to-day management of the site on behalf of the owners.
In a bad night of storms, high winds pulled-back the felt layer on the flat part of the roof, exposing the top-floor flat to heavy rain. Just before midnight water was pouring into the apartment like a running tap, so I called the insurance company's 'out of hours' line for help. I was told to arrange for emergency repairs to make the building watertight and then submit a claim to the insurance company. As per the advice, I arranged for a local company to make temporary repairs and also began the claim process.
When I called the claims department, I was advised that our policy was looked after by a third party 'claim handler' - an intermediary acting on behalf of the freeholders and leaseholders who liaises between the policy-holders and insurance company. As such, I made my claim through this channel and within hours they responded to say that the claim wasn't valid because the weather wasn't bad enough to cause such damage. The fact that the BBC News website was ablaze with pictures of flood damage from the previous night's storm wasn't sufficient evidence to constitute a claim due to high winds. I emailed local weather reports and links to several websites giving information about the previous day's weather and the insurers seemed to back-down a little. They asked me to send pictures of the roof taken by the roofer while making the emergency repairs. They looked at the images and concluded that the edge of the roof line wasn't properly fixed - and, therefore, wasn't secure enough to prevent weather damage. They suggested that the initial installation when the block was built eight years ago was sub-standard and their cover excluded claims due to poor workmanship.
As the building is within the ten-year new-build guarantee, I approached the NHBC and made a claim against their policy. They sent an investigator to our development to check the work and, whilst they agreed that the roof wasn't fixed very well, their cover for new-builds in 2004 didn't extend to flat roofs. The claim was therefore rejected.
In the meantime, the insurers had instructed a loss adjustor to carry out an inspection and assess the claim. I sent him the invoice for emergency repairs and a quote/estimate for the full repairs. He arranged for a second quote to be carried out by a company nominated by the claims-handler, and, just before Christmas, the loss adjustor called me to confirm that the damage will be covered. He just needed to finalise the case, compare estimates, and then send out the cheque - all of which was planned for early January, right after the Christmas break.
At the start of this week (early Jan), I called the loss adjustor to check on progress, and was told there'd been a problem with the claim, and it may not be as clear-cut as he originally thought. He was going to speak to the Claim Handler about a few issues and then get back to me. I immediately called the Claim Handler for an update, and one of the director’s (of a small three-person company) said he needed to see what was happening and would have to speak to the insurer and freeholder. I was very confused as to what was going on, as it seemed as though there was something suspicious afoot? The claim handler gave the impression that he was acting on behalf of the insurer rather than us (i.e. the policy holders) as he started challenging me on weather, workmanship, etc.. It was very strange, particularly as he is the middleman, allegedly acting on our behalf...
Simultaneously, the roofer has presented me with the invoice for emergency repairs, amounting to £5,800. All they have appeared to do so far is: erect scaffolding; fix a single, temporary layer of felt; cover the area with a plastic sheet; and then weight the corners of the membrane to prevent wind damage. The cost is clearly extreme.
So, there are lots of issues I need help with...
1. If we need to pay for emergency repairs, what do I need to do to formally dispute the invoice? The fee is beyond acceptable and, in my eyes, has been inflated for insurance claim purposes. The roofer is a bit of a ‘hard man’ and is getting quite heavy with us…
2. I am going to write to the house-builder, Taylor Wimpey, to see if they can provide any help / support with the poor workmanship problem.
3. Is the insurer truly able to deflect this claim?
4. Can anyone suggest what is going on with this apparent ‘cartel’ between Claim Handler, Insurer, Loss-Adjustor and Freeholder. Are we being set-up, and am I missing something?
Urgent help would be appreciated as I am ‘up to my neck’ in it!
Thanks in advance for any assistance,
Gary
Hopefully somebody can help or direct me to an appropriate invoice...
I live in a development of flats where I also look after the day-to-day management of the site on behalf of the owners.
In a bad night of storms, high winds pulled-back the felt layer on the flat part of the roof, exposing the top-floor flat to heavy rain. Just before midnight water was pouring into the apartment like a running tap, so I called the insurance company's 'out of hours' line for help. I was told to arrange for emergency repairs to make the building watertight and then submit a claim to the insurance company. As per the advice, I arranged for a local company to make temporary repairs and also began the claim process.
When I called the claims department, I was advised that our policy was looked after by a third party 'claim handler' - an intermediary acting on behalf of the freeholders and leaseholders who liaises between the policy-holders and insurance company. As such, I made my claim through this channel and within hours they responded to say that the claim wasn't valid because the weather wasn't bad enough to cause such damage. The fact that the BBC News website was ablaze with pictures of flood damage from the previous night's storm wasn't sufficient evidence to constitute a claim due to high winds. I emailed local weather reports and links to several websites giving information about the previous day's weather and the insurers seemed to back-down a little. They asked me to send pictures of the roof taken by the roofer while making the emergency repairs. They looked at the images and concluded that the edge of the roof line wasn't properly fixed - and, therefore, wasn't secure enough to prevent weather damage. They suggested that the initial installation when the block was built eight years ago was sub-standard and their cover excluded claims due to poor workmanship.
As the building is within the ten-year new-build guarantee, I approached the NHBC and made a claim against their policy. They sent an investigator to our development to check the work and, whilst they agreed that the roof wasn't fixed very well, their cover for new-builds in 2004 didn't extend to flat roofs. The claim was therefore rejected.
In the meantime, the insurers had instructed a loss adjustor to carry out an inspection and assess the claim. I sent him the invoice for emergency repairs and a quote/estimate for the full repairs. He arranged for a second quote to be carried out by a company nominated by the claims-handler, and, just before Christmas, the loss adjustor called me to confirm that the damage will be covered. He just needed to finalise the case, compare estimates, and then send out the cheque - all of which was planned for early January, right after the Christmas break.
At the start of this week (early Jan), I called the loss adjustor to check on progress, and was told there'd been a problem with the claim, and it may not be as clear-cut as he originally thought. He was going to speak to the Claim Handler about a few issues and then get back to me. I immediately called the Claim Handler for an update, and one of the director’s (of a small three-person company) said he needed to see what was happening and would have to speak to the insurer and freeholder. I was very confused as to what was going on, as it seemed as though there was something suspicious afoot? The claim handler gave the impression that he was acting on behalf of the insurer rather than us (i.e. the policy holders) as he started challenging me on weather, workmanship, etc.. It was very strange, particularly as he is the middleman, allegedly acting on our behalf...
Simultaneously, the roofer has presented me with the invoice for emergency repairs, amounting to £5,800. All they have appeared to do so far is: erect scaffolding; fix a single, temporary layer of felt; cover the area with a plastic sheet; and then weight the corners of the membrane to prevent wind damage. The cost is clearly extreme.
So, there are lots of issues I need help with...
1. If we need to pay for emergency repairs, what do I need to do to formally dispute the invoice? The fee is beyond acceptable and, in my eyes, has been inflated for insurance claim purposes. The roofer is a bit of a ‘hard man’ and is getting quite heavy with us…
2. I am going to write to the house-builder, Taylor Wimpey, to see if they can provide any help / support with the poor workmanship problem.
3. Is the insurer truly able to deflect this claim?
4. Can anyone suggest what is going on with this apparent ‘cartel’ between Claim Handler, Insurer, Loss-Adjustor and Freeholder. Are we being set-up, and am I missing something?
Urgent help would be appreciated as I am ‘up to my neck’ in it!
Thanks in advance for any assistance,
Gary
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