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Insurance rant

5K views 52 replies 15 participants last post by  ronan 
#1 ·
So my elderly neighbour opposite (I use the term elderly advisedly as I suspect he's only just turned 70) claims his brakes failed in his Beemer just before Xmas and as a result he ended up in our front garden. Apparently he reversed down his driveway and couldn't stop. He came through our front wall (not a big wall - about 2 feet high) and his car ended up see-sawing over the remains of it.

Anyway - he was deeply apologetic. Called his insurers (RSA) telling them he was entirely at fault and gave us all his insurers details. His car was removed quite promptly leaving us with a car sized gap in the wall. He's given it a hefty wallop so the foundations are lifted in the gap he made so it's a non-trivial job.

Called RSA and asked them how they were dealing with this. They said that it was all no issue, all covered, just send in 3 quotes for rebuild/replacement of wall and they would cover it (pending an assessor coming to check it if quotes warranted it).

This happened the week before Xmas.

Since then we have been trying to get 3 quotes.

Have you ever tried getting quotes for rebuilding a partially bolloxed garden wall?

Gardeners apparently "don't do building work" and builders apparently "don't do gardens". So far - in 3 weeks (we didn't look over Xmas and were on holiday until 6th Jan) - we have managed to get 1 written quote from a reluctant landscape company who kept stressing that they would give a quote but couldn't be less interested in the work. Have had two "no job too small" guys turn up (one said it was indeed "too small", the other said it was too big for him....) with no joy.

So last Friday I finally lost patience with it all and called RSA and told them that it's actually a real pain in the erse to get 3 quotes on a job like this and since it wasn't me who drove through my wall can't they just either (a) use the 1 quote I have, or (b) just send an assessor and agree an amount? I can't see it costing more than 2 grand to rebuild what was there using the same materials. The one quote we have got was for 2,800 pounds but they really didn't want to do the job.

I've asked a couple of builders we know to just write us a quote even if they don't want the work, but they promise they will and then (unsurprisingly) we don't get to the top of their busy agenda...... Same with the gardener who reckons he's too busy to even quote let alone do the work.

On the call, RSA said they need 3 quotes. End of. It's policy. Have a nice day. Call back when you have the 3 quotes.

So the guy over the road (car now repaired, back on his merry way) is all done and dusted and I'm still spending hours at a time calling and emailing, getting rebuffed, waiting around for people to turn up to quote who don't arrive and being told by the insurers that it's down to me to do all the leg work.

And even when I do manage to rustle up 3 quotes - they will all end up being from outfits that don't want the job and then I am stuck trying to find someone who actually DOES want to do it.

I appreciate it's a sod of a job (not enough in it for most outfits, and a bit too big of a job for the handyman or gardeners) - but what a right old pain in the 'aris.
 
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#2 ·
It's not insurance that's your problem. It's this weird state of affairs where seemingly the majority of tradesmen just don't maintain behaviours which benefit their business.

We had a similar thing when we moved house and needed a gas fire re-instating. I must have gone through 5 or 6 heating engineers who all came, checked the draw, confirmed what the problem was ... and then disappeared off the face of the Earth. Fair enough you don't want that job - but if you tell me, I'll accept it. If you go radio silent I'll never use you again for any other job either.

Do you have presence on the dreaded Facebook? Local 'buy,sell, recommendation' facebook groups, or even chat groups have been a Godsend to me in finding tradesmen for a multitude of work we needed doing. Plumbers, landscapers, alarm fitters, window cleaners, etc. It's a great resource for finding people with genuine recommendations.
 
#3 ·
Yes and MrsDibnah has posted various times on local pages etc and (possibly unhelpfully) posted detailed pictures so people can make a judgement without traipsing out to see it (I fully appreciate how much time quoting takes up for trades people). I think it's just a funny old job.

The wall is made of some sort of decorative stone so it's not a straightforward bricky job, and with the foundation lifted it's probably a bit of heavy lifting/back breaking to get it all out and start again.

The reason I think it's (also) an insurance rant (IMHO) is that they are supposed to be there, with their sky high premiums for fully comp, to do the leg work in these situations. RSA aren't small and must have a preferred list of trades people or go to outfits for all sorts of work (RSA do as much buildings insurance as they do motor) so why can't they do the bit of assessing rather than me having to do it?

If I was to go and get 3 high quotes (tell 3 builders that it's an insurance job so slap on the extras and quote 5k) - they would then (quite correctly) send out an assessor to see if the quotes are reasonable. So why not do that first and just agree an amount?

To be honest - any company that just assumes that my time is their time (British Gas and their 8 hour job slots, delivery companies that demand a signature, and insurers who want me - the not at fault victim - to run round and get their quotes for them - get my back up
 
#20 ·
To return to the original. That wall looks like a bit of amateur DIY by, presumably, a previous owner. Hence no self respecting brickie will want anything to do with it. As Dan says you need a dry stone waller. Have you thought about rebuilding yourself now that, being retired, you have time on your hands?
 
#22 ·
The wall was certainly not my work. It was all but invisible to be honest as the untrimmed bush around the front of the house meant you could only see the odd snatch. Stop giggling at the back there.

Having said that - it was a perfectly decent bit of boundary so even if it is just rebuilt "as is" I am fine with it. Actually the one builder who did quote mentioned that it was a solid old thing and that the foundations were pretty deep so it may be a lousy picture of a half decent wall.
 
#23 ·
According to RSA they check if the quotes are reasonable and then approve the work. Not sure if they then instruct the builder or I do and they pay me back.

If they think the quotes are unreasonable apparently they send an assessor out :oops:

Maybe he comes with a trowel and a bag of cement? I don't really care as long as my wall goes back to how it was.

With boy Dibnah getting to driving age in a short few years (well, 4) - I'm fully expecting to have to widen the driveway at some point so not interested in tarting anything up in the front til then.
 
#24 ·
Possible that your guesstimates of the cost are low. We had a stone waller called ( Tim Mason) yes really, who built our front garden wall from welsh slate and the cost went way above the cost of just a wall. Having said that the foundations were fairly small compared to a conventional wall so perhaps the work below ground is not so hard. Trawl through the local dry stone wallers, you may well find your answer there. ( At one time I would have said look in the local yellow pages but since the internet of things arrived the yellow pages are one thing thats gone ). Before we used Mr Mason for our wall we did ask local builders about the job and to a man they all shied away because they were unfamiliar with the techniques required becaure a lot of what needs to be done is by eye, and builders like spirit levels.
 
#26 ·
Quite so.

As the 'wronged' and blameless party, you are entitled to indemnification. Indemnity is a legal principle, defined as "a duty to make good any loss, damage, or liability incurred by another" (Black's Law Dictionary). The Courts interpret it as meaning "to be put back into the position you were in, before the accident occurred". Nowhere in your neighbours insurance policy does it say that you have agreed to do all the donkey work if they ever knock your wall down - so there is no legal or contractual obligation for you to do so.

I would tell the insurer that they are legally obliged to indemnify you and that you will be happy to give access to your property so that an assessor and then a repairer - chosen and paid for by them - can repair the damage caused by their client. If they won't indemnify you, you could escalate the matter through their formal in-house complaints process (all insurance companies are required to have one, and it must be timely and efficient) and then, if you are still not happy, to the Financial Ombudsman Service who will consider the case and issue a final and binding ruling.
 
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#28 · (Edited)
This is an insurance case and you will have to wait a lot, now you need to be patient and do not force it, because it could make your case worse or the decision to take will be declined. To be honest, I had never met such an issue, the only one issue that I had was that I needed to buy an Insurance coverage for my new car, but I did not have any money for that and I couldn't find anything better than a review of how to get insurance now and to pay later. After I read this article, I found out about an insurance service that could let you buy a coverage now and to pay for it later. This thing helped me a lot and I was able to drive my car safe to my house, maybe it will be useful for somebody else
 
#29 ·
Quick update..... because i know you are all waiting for the outcome....

Finally managed to get 3 quotes - albeit one of them was just an email, but that was all he was prepared to do - and sent them off to RSA. They called yesterday to say that they had all 3 and are running them through their assessment process and will be back in touch by end of Friday.

What a right old faff.
 
#30 ·
Quick update..... because i know you are all waiting for the outcome....

Finally managed to get 3 quotes - albeit one of them was just an email, but that was all he was prepared to do - and sent them off to RSA. They called yesterday to say that they had all 3 and are running them through their assessment process and will be back in touch by end of Friday.

What a right old faff.
"will be back in touch by end of Friday"....................to probably reject all 3 of them as too expensive.

And even if they accept any of the quotes it will be up to you to get the work done...or is the insurance company going to sort that out ?
Methinks not......what a con !!
 
#31 ·
I don't know whether to hope this goes well for the sake of olur good friend Fred, or hope it doesn't because of the epic rantage we can expect. :unsure:
 
#34 ·
Hey. I'm known for toileting in the woods, not building walls in a hedge.
 
#39 ·
I'm in South Africa on business currently - but when I get home on Friday and MrsDibnah fills me in on the latest gory details I have missed over this week on #RSA-Gate I shall construct a suitably expletive laden update on this saga that could potentially cause even our most follicly challenged comrades to get a little curlier.

(Quick Coronavirus update - a team of 4 of us flew down to Johannesburg to meet 5 of our people here for a face to face set of meetings. Our arrival from plague-infested Europe has induced such panic in the office here that the 5 people we came to meet have all joined our sessions over video conference from their houses for fear of having to touch us or breathe the same air as us. Therefore we have flown half way round the world to sit in an empty Johannesburg office speaking to our SA colleagues from the safety of their homes in the suburbs of Johannesburg. Does anyone else feel that the thick end of 20k on flights and hotels for us has been a little casual cost-wise?)
 
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