HOME FLOOD INSURANCE CLAIMS

When you telephone your insurance company, ask for the claims department and explain to them that you have had serious water damage at your home and need their instructions. In all likelihood, they will instruct a Loss Adjuster who will represent their interests (not yours!) and he will make an appointment to come and see you. Quite obviously, if it is a very serious flood then pressure the claims department to instruct a Loss Adjuster immediately and tell them that you cannot wait (especially if you have young children or are caring for the elderly).

This is also the ideal time to instruct Loss Assessors (ideally us!) insofar that where possible, we would like to meet you before you meet your Insurance Company’s representative, the Loss Adjuster. This gives us the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with your home and ensure that whatever report the Loss Adjuster writes to your insurers will be exactly as we have found it ourselves. Please note that our meeting you before you meet the insurance company’s Loss Adjuster is not essential but it very much helps.

It is essential to understand that when you are making an insurance claim for flood or water damage, it is paramount that you do everything possible to mitigate (minimise) your loss. If your insurers believe that you have not acted promptly and with due diligence they can quite easily suggest that the water damage is far more severe than it would’ve been had you attended to the situation quicker.

The first thing we will do is to instruct a specialist flood/water damage restoration company who we know will be acceptable to your insurers.  Many ‘so-called’ restoration companies take advantage of an emergency flood/water ingress insurance claim and charge an unacceptably large fee, which will immediately put your insurance company ‘on its guard’ for the rest of the claim.

We will also instruct an electrical contractor on your behalf who will have had a great deal of experience with insurance claims and wet wiring.  It’s important to note that not all electrical contractors have insurance claims experience and we can confirm that our approved list of electrical contractors are all insurance company approved.  Be mindful that even when your property looks dry, so often the after-effects of water ingress can go far beyond what can actually be seen. It is vital that every square inch (OK, centimetres for you younger folk!) of your property is fully dried out.  By way of an example, should it be found after a few years that your property has wet rot that can be linked to the original water damage claim, then your insurers are very likely to repudiate the future wet rot claim.  Also, if your property has been very badly damaged by the water ingress and requires you and your family to seek alternative accommodation, then we will ensure that the restoration company pumps out all excess water and installs drying equipment, making sure that your home is left totally secure.

Of course!  We have contacts at nearly every major letting agent throughout London and the South East and those agents will ‘jump’ when we ask them to help you.  Your insurance company is also likely to have similar contacts but don’t be in the least surprised if you are offered alternative living accommodation of a lesser standard than that where you were living before the flood.  Fear not!  We will simply not allow your insurers to arrange anything on your behalf other than a ‘like-for-like’ accommodation.  Of course, if you’re living in a 3-bedroom semi then do not expect your insurers to offer you a 4-bedroom detached house to live in while the refurbishment is being carried out.  Conversely, we will not allow your insurers to ‘palm you off’ with an unsuitable property, which they will undoubtedly try so they can save money.

You don’t, we do! Our function is to prepare all the schedules of your water damaged contents and only at such time that you are happy that everything has been included will we present it in an acceptable format to the Loss Adjuster.  Of course, we also manage the building claim on your behalf.  Your insurance company will wish to instruct a Chartered Surveyor to manage the refurbishment. Be in no doubt that whichever surveying company they choose, that company knows very well “which side their bread is buttered” and as independent as you would expect them to be, that “independence” is always more partial to those that are paying them, i.e. your insurers! In a nutshell, a surveyor that you have not chosen yourself is very unlikely to act totally impartially although they may be acting under the disguise of independence but, remember, you have not instructed them!  We will instruct an independent Chartered Surveyor on your behalf but paid for by your insurers. You can then be in no doubt that they will be acting impartially, ensuring that their specification covers every possible damage caused by the flood waters. Of course, every Chartered Surveyor understands the building technicalities but, it may surprise you to learn, not all surveyors have deep insurance knowledge and that is why we will only instruct Chartered Surveyors that we feel are competent enough to understand the complexities of an Insurance flood claim.

So long as you are adequately insured (or at least not very under insured), we will negotiate recompense for all your flood-damaged property. Certainly, the Loss Adjuster representing your insurance company will do everything to try to reduce your claim especially where clothing is concerned. However, we will argue your case and it is a very rare instance where we are unable to negotiate a full settlement in respect of all of your water-damaged clothing.

Another area where Loss Adjusters will try to knock your claim down is by suggesting that electronic goods that have been affected by the water ingress will be absolutely fine after they have dried out! No, they won’t – and we will insist that all of your water-damaged electronics be replaced on a new-for-old basis.

Also, be mindful that just because water hasn’t touched a sensitive piece of electronic equipment, that does not mean that it will not fall under consideration for replacement. For example, if the flood happened whilst you were away on holiday then the humidity in your home would’ve been very high indeed and there is every possibility that this will damage printed circuit boards in electronic equipment etc. This is something that we will arrange on your behalf to have checked.

The Chartered Surveyor we instruct on your behalf will send his specification to three independent, tried-and-tested building companies who have been in business for at least 8 years backed-up with a good set of business accounts so you can rest assured that your chances of instructing a rogue builder to work on your most valuable possession are next to nothing.

Every so often we have clients who wish to instruct their own builders (more often than not a ‘friend of a friend’) and on your behalf, we will carry out a credit check on those builders.  What we very much wish you to avoid is ‘stepping out of the fire and into the frying pan’ by instructing a recommendation from a friend and running a very high risk of experiencing problems with, which is the last thing you will need after the awful experience of having your home under water.

Even if your water-sodden contents are seemingly beyond repair, it is absolutely essential that you throw everything into rubbish bags for later inspection.  If the Loss Adjuster reports back to your insurers that he has not seen anything that you will be claiming for, there is every chance that your insurers will make every effort to try and get out of paying for those items.

Your insurers or the Loss Adjuster will heavily suggest that one of their own “approved” building contractors should carry out the refurbishment of your home after the flood damage. 35 years of Loss Assessing experience has taught us that it is essential to pick your own builders who will not have an “agenda” that suits your insurers. More often than not, builders are “approved” because they are very cheap. There’s a reason why they are cheap and we find that when they are working to a price rather than a quality then the only person who suffers is you, the claimant. Put simply, it is our experience that your insurers choice of builder is inevitably not just the cheapest of the quotations that you’ll receive but, more often than not, the least experienced.  The most important thing to us is that you, our client, experiences the least stress during what is always a stressful time dealing with builders and we know that the more experienced the builder the less trouble you are likely to experience which will not cause you any additional headache.

Good question, and we hope an equally good answer. It is important to understand that your own insurance company is employing third party insurance claim experts, i.e. the Loss Adjusters, to negotiate any large claim on their behalf. And the reason? It’s because the insurance company does not hold itself out to be a claim negotiator. In much the same way, you, the claimant, would be considered very unlucky indeed if you had to make more than two or three large claims in a lifetime. We, as insurance Loss Assessors, handle 10 or more new and large flood insurance claims every couple of weeks and our experience is second to none. We know our way around the insurance claims industry very well and, in much the same way that the Loss Adjuster is, it could be said, being paid to reduce your claim on behalf of your insurers, we are doing everything possible to get you the highest possible settlement. You would not dream of going to court to defend yourself without a Solicitor, and we hope that you will agree that something as important as a large insurance claim should be treated in expert hands on your behalf, just like the insurance company are leaving it to their experts. Please, do not make the misguided mistake of thinking that the Loss Adjuster has been sent to help you by your insurers. He hasn’t. He is there to represent their interests and to ensure that the extent of their liability is restricted by clever negotiation.

Certainly, some of the larger insurance brokers do have a Claims Department. However, please understand that the role of an Insurance Broker is to get you the best quality, all-encompassing insurance policy at the keenest possible price. That’s how they earn their money. Certainly, they will help you with your flood insurance claim to the best of their ability in the limited time that they have available for what for them is a non-profit making activity. It may interest you to learn that 65-70% of our business is actually referred to us by insurance brokers. We hope we have made our case.

We charge a small percentage of the claim total and this is dependent on our estimation of the size of the claim. What we can say, is that it is a very rare instance indeed where we are not able to negotiate a far higher settlement than you can yourself. We haven’t been around for 35 years because we get people less than they can get themselves! Think of us as mercenaries (but nice ones!) The more we get you, the more we will charge you and the quicker we get your claim settled the quicker we will be paid. We assure you that there could be no better incentive for us to ensure you are paid to the absolute maximum.

Even if we have not been instructed at the start of the claim, we are still prepared to help you get a better settlement. However, our fee structure is different and instead of charging you a small percentage of the total claim we will charge you a higher percentage but only on any difference that we achieve. In passing, it is a rare instance where we cannot get an extra payment from insurers.