House flooded Christmas Day - BVS already causing some issues.

[unclebulgaria67]

Remember, however BVS behave, it is your Insurers AXA who are responsible for ensuring that your claim is dealt with properly and your house restored to pre-burst pipe condition.

 

As Bankfodder says, you can have your own assessors to provide information for your purposes, but these do not replace BVS.  AXA appointed BVS and under your Insurance contract, you must allow BVS to conduct their loss adjusting services.  If you are not happy with the way BVS deal with your claim, than you need to register a complaint with AXA claims department.

 

Remember that BVS and Insurance company staff dealing with claims, will be handling large volumes of burst pipe claims as well as other claims.  Therefore sometimes the way they communicate can be partly driven by the level of stress they are trying to cope with.  Insurance companies and loss adjusting companies tend to place work volumes on their staff that lead to problems.  So please be friendly and courteous to those who will be wanting to help you, but are under high levels of pressure.  

[unclebulgaria67]

Agree that it is up to @EndlessSummerto provide quotations and reports to BVS to confirm the detailed work/costs that are required to put the property back into the condition it was before the burst pipe.

 

BVS of course are expected by AXA to ensure the value of the claim is kept as low as possible. But sometimes, where water damage is hidden, the true extent of what work needs to be completed in not known.   BVS have their view on what is required and now it is critical that @EndlessSummerfully documents what work their own contractors believe is necessary.  BVS are correct that some companies see claim events as opportunity to make money from unnecessary work and if this were to happen, then BVS/AXA might not pay excessive amounts.

 

Buildings Insurance will include anything that is fitted, so including damage to kitchen. Contents includes loose fitted items like carpets. So there will be two claims at the same time. 

 

AXA/BVS are correct that the pipe that burst e.g. plumbing work would be at the policyholders expense. The cost of putting right the water damage would be down to BVS/AXA to pay. 

 

AXA have delegated the claim to BVS, but at any point if you are not happy, you can raise complaint with AXA.

[unclebulgaria67]

The Home Insurance policy schedule, should confirm how much they will cover alternative accommodation costs for.

If you go down the legal route, the FOS won't touch any complaint.  And I am not sure issuing Court claims is going to speed up the claim works.  It might be worth contacting newspaper consumer rights journalists, as I suspect this will  encourage Axa  to become much more energetic in dealing with your claim, if they look like they will get bad publicity, causing them loss of business.

Daily Mail/This is Money.co.uk have a financial page, where they will take a look at interesting consumer problems, to see if they can resolve.

helen.crane@thisismoney.co.uk

You could get your own Independent loss assessor involved.  It may be worth finding local assessors and having a conversation about the current situation.

Home - The Institute of Public Loss Assessors

LOSSASSESSORS.ORG

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A Loss Assessor represents policyholders when they need to submit an insurance claim, and our members have experience in dealing with all types of claim.

And speak to Axa about the date your complaint was registered on their system.

Tel no. 0300 024 1277  Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm

 

Or email  

HouseholdComplaints.INS@axa.co.uk