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House Insurance Claim Delay

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  • 10-03-2010 11:42am
    #1
    meridian74
    Registered Users Posts: 7 ✭


    Hi - I was wondering if someone could give me some advice about a house insurance claim. The pipes in my house burst over the Xmas period causing some damage as I was at my parents for Xmas. the loss adjustor for the insurance company asked for ESB bills for billing periods for Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan whcih I gave. The bills are all for about €60.[/COLOR]

    The loss adjustor reckons that is low and is questioning whether I lived there. I thougth €60 - €70 was average for a semi d considering I am at work all day and travel away from home with my job at least 2-3 nights a week.becasue it took about 4 days for them their loss adjustor to come out I had cleaned out a lot of my stuff - clothes, books, Cd's - and now they are asking if I really lived there. . Is the loss adjustor points reasonable? I am worried sick about when I will be able to move home and whether they can just say no they won't cover the rpair costs.


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    #2
    oldyouth
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,754 ✭✭✭oldyouth


    There is probably a clause in your policy voiding certain losses if the house is unoccupied for more than 30 consecutive days in a period of cover. He has asked the question of you. Is there any other circumstances to back your story such as landline phone calls from the house, magazine subscriptions, other bills, perhaps some service providers called to the house to see you during that period.

    If you state that you were there during the period, it is up to the adjuster to establish otherwise. If he can prove your story in not accurate, well then.............


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    #3
    thebiglad
    Registered Users Posts: 1,566 ✭✭✭thebiglad


    IS ESB your only energy bill?

    If so then €60 per month is excellent - I would agree with LA.

    You do realise there is an unoccupancy clause in your policy specifically for issues such as burst pipes?

    Do you leave heating on whilst you are away from the house and especially over the xmas period...

    In fairness we do not have the sight of the house the LA got when he came to assess the claim, regardless of having cleared the CDs etc there would have been clear signs that the house was a main residence.

    Anyhow that, it is for the LA/Insurer to prove that you are not resident in the house enough, so long as you are at least there every weekend then you should be ok. Push them to make a decision one way or the other - at least if they do decline you then you can make a complaint of the decision to the Insurance Ombudsman and get the matter moving.

    Think carefully if you have any other way to prove that you are in the house regularly during the period, ie. telephone landline from which you can demonstrate regular outgoing calls, do you pay for NTL/SKY (if you pay these services above the basic package may be arguable one would not do so if not a main residence). What address does your bank/credit card company have for you?

    It is all circumstancial but, the more the you put up the less likely they are to decline your claim.


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    #4
    oldyouth
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,754 ✭✭✭oldyouth


    Is there an echo in here :D


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    #5
    Andymfinancial
    Closed Accounts Posts: 60 ✭✭Andymfinancial


    The first thing you need to do is stop dealing with THEIR loss adjuster. You need to employ your own loss adjuster to act on your behalf and he will negotiate with their loss adjuster. The job of an insurers loss adjuster is to keep the claim as low as possible. If you employ your own it is on a no payout no fee basis and normally they just take a percentage of the total payout, normally 10%. It is well worth paying the extra 10% because you will probably get in the region of 50% more. I recently dealt with a claim where the insurers loss adjuster rejected the claim. The client got his own loss adjuster and got €10,300!!! You need to get on this as soon as possible. I know of a couple of guys in kerry who would do this for you but i dont know where u are in the country!


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