Insurance company won't pay for plumber to prevent future water damage

Hello. I'm suffering from a few leaks from an ensuite and/or bathroom and/or tank. My ceiling downstairs is damaged from the water. I've rang my insurance company (Ulster bank) and they say they will pay for me to fix any damage (painting/plastering) but they will not pay for the plumber to do his work in finding the leak. Nor will they pay for any tiling that may need to be done in the ensuite to source the leak. They say the leak problem I have is due to corrosion/time and they do not cover this. I was surprised by this but UB told me this is standard amongst insurance companies. I rang my plumber and he confirmed that insurance companies no longer pay for such plumbing work (he intimated that things were different a few years ago). It looks like I'm stuck paying a plumber to find and fix a leak which could be a big job. Any body had this problem with insurance companies in the past? I just want to make sure that I'm not being walked over.

Did you check the terms & conditions of your policy document to check what's covered and what's not?

ClubMan said:

Did you check the terms & conditions of your policy document to check what's covered and what's not?

Click to expand...

I can't find it ! But UB told me that what they've said to me is what's in my policy and I don't doubt them. I suppose I just want to understand is whether this is typical of other insurance companies.

Different policies have different terms & conditions so it's hard to generalise about such specifics across the board.

I had a claim recently and the plumber told me "Seek and Find" is always covered i.e. time spent discovering the fault. Also said that leaks caused by bad workmanship and the damage they do are not covered. In other words, if you smash your u-bend with a hammer and flood the house your covered but a slow leak destroying partition walls and ceilings is not.....

owenm said:

I had a claim recently and the plumber told me "Seek and Find" is always covered i.e. time spent discovering the fault. Also said that leaks caused by bad workmanship and the damage they do are not covered. In other words, if you smash your u-bend with a hammer and flood the house your covered but a slow leak destroying partition walls and ceilings is not.....

Click to expand...

Just so I'm clear....does this mean that time spent by a plumber finding a fault , no matter what the cause (even bad workmanship by others), is always covered? (even though the subsequenct repair work carried out by the plumber will not be covered)

owenm said:

I had a claim recently and the plumber told me "Seek and Find" is always covered i.e. time spent discovering the fault. Also said that leaks caused by bad workmanship and the damage they do are not covered. In other words, if you smash your u-bend with a hammer and flood the house your covered but a slow leak destroying partition walls and ceilings is not.....

Click to expand...

I rang up Ulster Bank and they tell me that "seek and find" is not covered by their policy. They admit that some other insurers do cover this. Bummer.

Also called 'trace and access' cover, it should be covered on most policies now. Ulster Bank is the agent here, the Insurer is likely to be one of four large companies operating in Ireland.If this is substantial damage you could consider employing a loss assessor.These are claims specialists who work on your behalf and deal with the Insurance Company. the generally negotiate a settlement beyond the standard cover as they know the approaches to take with interpretation of policy wordings etc and have connections with the various Insurer claims chanels. They usually charge 10% of the amount of the claim depending on the size of the claim. Good Luck.