Quickly about VAT. The situation with cash settlements is the insurer does not need to pay the VAT component until you have been presented with a VAT invoice. (Because you haven't "lost" that money until you have been invoiced.) So what you should agree with the insurer is either to pay you the VAT up front, or else they will pay you the VAT on your contractor's invoice with 7 days of you presenting the invoice to the insurer. My claim is going OK. In fact, I think it will get resolved today. The thing that ultimately got the claim moving forwards was me taking legal action against AXA. This got their solicitors involved, and I had to keep on ratcheting up the pressure with their solicitors to get an outcome that was fair. We've agreed on a settlement figure now, and they sent through the documentation yesterday when I was out all day. I'm going to check it through today and hopefully sign it off. The financial settlement we've agreed is just under 9 times higher than they first offered!

Thanks - this is very helpful. I am not sure how to use the legal system to get them to act in a reasonable timeframe though. I am sure once they have agreed on the quantum for a loss they'll pay it quite quickly, but what can you issue an action for if the amount of the loss is not agreed?

Although it's a hypothetical question, it is based on a real situation. Clearly it is in the interest of the insurer to handle things slowly... the longer they take to pay out, the more likely it is the insured will accept a partial settlement, and the longer they can invest the capital for. So is there any obligation in law for them to handle things reasonably? What's to stop an insurer taking 6 months to resolve a claim when it would be possible to resolve it in 1 month? I'm not saying 6 months would be unprofessional, it would just be far slower than is necessary.

I agree that putting timescales in would be a nightmare. But for example, if you had a car crash, what if they said the first time someone could look at the car was 30 days? Or 60 days? Is there anything you can do to ask them to look at it more quickly?

I've got a general question on insurance that I was wondering if someone could help with. When an insured loss happens, the insurer is responsible for "putting it right". If it is at their discretion whether they either repair it or cash settle, and there is nothing in terms of timescales in the contract, why do they ever have to settle it? Why can't they simply keep bouncing correspondence to and fro for years before paying out?

How would the insurer's go about 'evidencing' the repairs are likely to be suitable? And how would I go about the opposite? Essentially there are two surveyors with two different opinions. My builder shares the same opinion as my surveyor.

Unclebulgaria, your suggested action of just 'going with the flow' is certainly the easiest option. However, this puts me in a potentially worse position than I should be. If we discover in 7 years time that things have deteriorated as a result of doing the patch repair, if we 'go with the flow' then we have no easy recourse against them because of the Limitation Act. What I don't want to do is go with the flow and suffer in the future as a result of this - I'm trying to protect myself against this.

I've got an insurance claim that's been going on since November and it has come to a bit of a head. Quite a high spec kitchen, I'm told £50k+ by the previous owner who had it done in 2004. Escape of water which led to lots of the units soaking up moisture into them. About 1/3rd of the kitchen is solid pine, the rest MDF. The insurer appointed a surveyor who said that the damp sections could be cut out and replaced by a joiner. I instructed my own surveyor who said that when water gets into MDF you need to replace the item, not do a 'patch repair'. The loss adjuster is Crawford's. Their position is to do the patch repair, my position is the full repair. I've offered them one of two positions: 1) Do the full repair as per my surveyor's suggestion 2) Do the patch repair as per their surveyor, but they give me a guarantee in case the repair is not sufficient. (E.G. If in 3, 5, 10 years time it becomes apparent my surveyor was right.) The position they're taking (unsurprisingly) is that they only want to do the cheap repair, and have no liability if it turns out they should have done the full repair. Can anyone offer any advice over how to handle this?

Thanks everyone for all their help, just wanted to come back to give a quick update. The Crawford & Co adjuster came around on Friday. Bit of a flying visit to be honest, and the conclusion he reached was he needed to pass it on to a local office, as it was above his £25k delegated authority. So it's now over 11 weeks and AXA haven't got me a settlement figure or agreed a start date for their builder...

All interesting comments, loss adjustor is coming this Friday so not long until I get an idea of how they're going to behave!

Well, I've sent a Data Protection Act SAR (Subject Access Request) to Crawford, AXA, their builder and their surveyor, so it will be interesting to see what information they come back. I think they do have a duty to disclose the quotations under this, but I am not 100% sure. Regarding any settlement, I will only make it on the basis that it is not final, and I can come back for more if during the course of the works it is found further damage has occurred, or else there is further damage that isn't apparent now that becomes apparent in the future.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I will update further when things have moved to the next stage.

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to give the insurance company a timescale on which I'll appoint my own loss adjuster then. However, one thing you mentioned I don't quite understand - why does it cost the insurance company more when the claim goes on longer?

I've already appointed my own surveyor - I'm not quite sure what a loss adjuster would do that my surveyor hasn't already done? The only outcome I can see of me appointing a loss adjuster is they produce a figure which is different to that the insurance company produces, and we then have an argument about it. This is pretty much the same situation as we are in at the moment, where the argument is going to be about my surveyor's schedule of works versus the insurance co's own. Have I missed something about what a loss adjuster does?

Firstly, thanks everyone for their replies! I've quoted the two replies as they neatly summarise where I've got to with my thinking. It's good that they've got their loss adjuster instructed, but based on experience so far with their "independent" experts, I'm not expecting the loss adjuster to handle the claim fairly. Assuming the adjuster doesn't come back with the same schedule of works my independent surveyor (who incidentally inspected the kitchen 18 months ago as part of a full home buying survey), then it will be a negotiation with AXA. Everything they have done so far has taken lots of time and served to frustrate a quick settlement, so I would assume that any further negotiation will add considerable time to the matter. What I'm trying to achieve is to get my kitchen back to the state it was pre-incident, as quickly as possible. It seems AXA is offering "quick, but not fully restored" or "fully restored, but not quick". I don't see what option I have to put pressure on AXA to speed things up, apart from court action. I've already put in a complaint to the FSA about the timescales AXA have taken to handle the claim.

Unwilling, yes, I can understand. But are they not required to disclose this information under the Data Protection Act part 7, and the Civil Procedure Rules, Pre-action conduct Annex A, 2.2(4)? (I have made a formal request under the latter but not the former yet.)

I have a home insurance policy with AXA. Last year, I had a pipe break that is set into the screed, causing lots of damage to the kitchen. This is covered by the AXA policy. I called them up, and three weeks later a surveyor from Imperial Consultants came out. He spent about 30 minutes at my house, and that afternoon he called to say he thought a figure of just over £3k was sufficient to repair the damage. I thought this was pretty unrealistic and told him so on the call; just the original floor in the kitchen had been £3k materials, and the units were £30k, painting £3k. He had included for repainting all the units in his £3k estimate. I have had two contractors in to look at the damage, and they've both given verbal figures in the £20-40k region; so significantly different it wasn't worth getting an accurate quotation from them. AXA then agreed to send out "Crawford Repairnet" who subcontracted a local builder to look at the work. He produced a schedule of works which is vastly different to the first surveyor, e.g. considerably more, and AXA have sent this through to me. Because of the size of the quote from this builder, they have arranged for a loss adjustor from Crawford to come and assess things next week. In the mean time, I've paid for my own surveyor who has assessed the damage and produced a report for me. I've offered this to AXA but it has not been taken up. He spent about 2 hours at my property, compared to a quarter of that for AXA's own surveyor. Furthermore, AXA are being very strange in their attitude towards me. They're refusing to produce information I request, for example the costs that their builder has quoted them, and the costs their surveyor originally assessed. They gave me a redacted version of both reports, with the costs removed, citing they would not disclose costs as they were commercially sensitive. I have already written to them requesting information (that they supplied in redcated form), with a Letter Before Action citing the Civil Procedure Rules. My fear is that their loss adjustor will come and argue things left, right, and centre, and I will be without my kitchen in an acceptable state for months. It has already been 10 weeks, and their actions have caused considerable delays. Additionally, the schedule of work is such that the kitchen is going to be out of use. My wife is at home during the day, and we have a toddler and newborn, so really cannot cope without a kitchen. Maybe if it was just the two of us potnoodles would work! We are insured for alternative accomodation though, although it would be a real pain the back side as anyone with young kids will know. So, my current thinking is as follows: 1) Do Subject Access Requests on the builder, Crawford Repairnet and Imperial to disclose all the information AXA are not prepared to disclose. 2) Get a builder to quote for the work my surveyor has suggested. 3) Issue a county court claim for my builder's quote. Hopefully this course of action will spur AXA to reach a satisfactory settlement without going to trial. However, if it does not, at least it has started the clock ticking for them. Could I have feedback; is this a sensible course of action, is there anything that I've missed? Are AXA allowed to refuse to disclose information to me under the Data Protection Act because it is 'commercially sensitive'? Many thanks all!

The point of the without prejudice is for them to get an inkling they may need to spend further costs on defending a court case. I appreciate an undertaking is a specific legal term, I am not sure if they will interpret my email as a colloquial or legal use of it. Either way, I am only asking them to undertake not to break Ofcom rules - it would be pretty embarrassing for them not to make it.

Out of interest - why would they not apologise if it was full and final settlement? I have only asked for an apology in relation to matters of fact, e.g. they broke Ofcom rules (which has been proved) and they accused me of lying (which has been proved).

Just sent off this email. I am sticking with the £100 and asking for an apology and undertaking that they won't break the Ofcom rules when contacting me/my wife again.

OK, so the consensus seems to be that £100 is reasonable. I will email the FOS and tell them if Goldfish include an apology then I will accept their offer.

Purely from a commercial point of view, if they have already had two complaints (say £25 each) that they have had to respond to, plus the FOS investigation (£450) to deal with, their costs are at £500. Instructing a solicitor to represent them will inevitably cost them at least another £100, and their offer is only currently £100. It would seem to make sense that they would increase their offer to make the matter "go away", considering the initial finding by the FOS was that distress was caused. The actual £100 is not the most important thing for me, but it is the fact that Goldfish broke the rules, and then lied to me to cover their tracks. The main things that Goldfish did that I was unhappy with were: - Didn't give me a statement, which was normally sent by email and post. I appreciate this could be the responsibility of one of their third party contractors, but it is *their* contractor, not mine. - On the *first debt recovery call* that wasn't silent, I confirmed I had not received the statement, and said that I would pay it in full by BACS when I received it, subject to there being no transactions I did not recognise. (I later did pay it in full when the statement was received, and historically the account has always been paid off in full and on time.) They told me it would take 5 working days to get a copy statement. - Silent calls - there are rules from Ofcom that say that when an aborted (silent) call is made to an individual, any subsequent calls in a 72 hour period must be made manually by a live operator. Goldfish broke this rule. - Silent calls - Ofcom rules say that if there is a silent call, within 2 seconds of answering it, the caller must play the recipient a pre-recorded message to explain the silent call, say who it is from, etc. Goldfish broke this rule too. - My list of calls they made to me is below, there may have been some more that I did not take a record of: • 2nd July – 08:31 (Silent call) • 2nd July – 14:49 (Silent call) • 2nd July – 19:31 (Call A) • 7th July – 13:44 (Silent call) • 8th July – 09:16 (Call B) • 8th July – 14:31 (Call C) • 8th July – 14:40 (Call D) - On "Call B" I told the operator I did not consent to being contacted in this way by an automated calling system, and if any further calls were received I would consider this harassment and report it to the police. Bare in mind I had already confirmed on "Call A" that I would pay the statement in full by BACS on its receipt. - "Call D" was actually to my office and therefore I have a recording of it. The operator confirmed on this call that they called me 7 times on 2nd July. I am not really sure on the harassment matter, I've read quite a bit on this forum but there isn't anything that matches up 100% to this case. I accept that Goldfish have a debt recovery procedure in place, but would the above constitute harassment?

An update on this is here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/182365-settlement-offer-via-financial.html Would it be helpful for me to scan all the letters and post up?

I have received a full & final settlement offer from Goldfish (now Barclays). A quick summary of my complaint was: - I have had a Goldfish credit card for 3 years, and paid the balance off in full every month - I received statements by email and post from them monthly - I received a call from Goldfish saying I was overdue, I looked at my emails while the guy was on the phone, and said I hadn't received the email statement, nor a paper statement. I said I would pay the balance in full once a statement was received. - After this initial call, I received a number of silent calls, and actual calls - I said on the calls that to call me again would be harassment - I received a statement and paid my balance in full - I sent a letter of complaint to Goldfish, explaining that they breached Ofcom's rules on silent calls (3 in a 24 hour period), and harassed me. I asked for £750 compensation. - They wrote back and told me the calls went to my voicemail, and were not silent. My complaint to the FOS explained all of the above, I also included an email from T-Mobile to confirm that my mobile has not got voicemail. I answered the calls, I can remember one when I was cycling into work and had to get off my bike to answer! The offer has come back from Goldfish to settle for £100. The FOS adjudicator has recommended I accept this. The adjudicator accepts I have been caused distress, but on Goldfish's side he accepts that they were taking debt recovery procedures. I'm trying to work out what to do. At the very least I will say that I will accept the £100 subject to a written apology. I'd really appreciate the input of the more knowledgeable guys on here as to whether to push harder for a higher settlement. What is a normal offer, is the £100 "good" or "bad". I have quite a high hourly rate that I charge, and I have only really pursued this as a matter of principle, because Goldfish upset me and they were breaking the rules, they letter effectively accused me of lying by saying that I did not answer the calls but they went to voicemail, which I have subsequently disproved. I am not sure if FOS will take into account my charge out rate...! Anyway, really appreciate any comments.

I've done a SAR and they've come back saying they've got no record. They failed to respond to my letter before action. No offer of refunding the cost of the calls or apology.