Home Insurance Claim - How best to deal with it ?

Hello All,

As a novice with claims on home insurance I am hoping that some people may be able to share their experiences with me.

In early December I have moved in to a ~10 year old house and we have noticed water coming up through the floor downstairs. The floor is laminated downstairs. A plumber I know came around and said the pipes only need to be tightened, but that there is approximately 1 inch of water underneath all the house. Downstairs is approximately 400sqft. He has said that we should take up the flooring in the kitchen and dining room, let the all the water dry out and then replace the flooring. Although I have seen that in other rooms downstairs the floor is also slightly bubbling up.

On the recommendation of the plumber I have called up my house insurance and they said I could claim and they have sent out a form to be filled out with a plumbers report.

Now the crunch - I would love take up all the floorboards downstairs and use the opportunity to replace it with some nice hardwood flooring and good tiles in the kitchen. Although I am nervous that the insurance will not pay for it. Even if they did not pay the full amount it would be ok (for example, I could pay material, if they pay labour...) --- it would be great if some people could share their experiences and let me know the optimal way to go around this one ...

Many Thanks,

Darragh.

Insurance

In my case the insurance company's independent Assessor come out and gave me a fixed amount for repairs ? The insurance will then send you out a cheque and you can do what you want with the money. My repairs actually cost less than what the insurance company gave me but that doesn't matter to them.

One bit of advice - do not tell any tradesmen you hire that its an 'insurance job' or they will up the price (from my experience). They will often ask before quoting a contract price.

Home Insurance claim

I would recommend you call in your own assessor and let them fill in your claim form. They know exactly what you can and cannot claim for and always get the best deal from the insurance company. I've had a claim this year too and found PDC (Property Claims Direct) excellent. They take 10% commission but it is well worth this cost to have your claim taken care of by professionals. Telephone them anyway and get some free advise.

By the way, I have no connection to this company.

Re: Home Insurance claim

I would suggest that you get an estimate for the work, on the basis of replacement not improvemnet and advise your insurers, they will most likely send out an assessor to investigate prior to work being done.
You can discuss with him that you would like to change to solid wood etc, he will advise you that insurers will only pay to put you back in the position you were before the incident and that they will not pay for betterment. therefore they should issue you a cheque based on the cost of materials and labour to repair/replace your floor to what it was before damage and if you want you can then add on the additional cost to get better quality etc.