A leak from somewhere in the upstairs bathroom has occurred and I’ve informed the insurance company.  Big excess which I fortunately have covered with a seperate policy.

The insurer has said that they won’t pay to fix the leak but will cover investigation and repairation.  We don’t even know what the cause is as yet but they’ve decided its wear and tear.  They also want to determine how much the setllement will be by video call (after me having to download an app).

Is this usual?  Part of the ceiling is going to have to come down in order to get into the soil pipe area – will they try and fob me off with patching the ceiling etc?  How can a settlement be determined before the leak is even identified yet alone repaired?

Is this a new practice by insurance businesses?  I thought, find out what causes it, fix it, repair the damage would be a pretty simple way of doing it!

The burden of proof is on the insured to demonstrate that the damage occurred by virtue of an insured peril; the usual course of events is for an insurer to send a loss adjuster to check whether an event falls within the scope of cover, but the insurer will incur a charge for each inspection; it may therefore just be the insurer cutting costs and putting the onus on you to prove it falls to be covered by them.

Which insurer is it? If you’re not happy about the standard of service, complain, but ultimately its up to you to prove it. I would get a plumber out to inspect and document everything with photos – they’ve already said they’ll pay that cost.

I hope you are not insured with Direct Line?

We had a shower leak 2 years ago.  Direct line said get 3 quotes.

We tried but only 1 plumber would give us a quote, others sighting that Insurers are becoming a nightmare to work with, and only authorise work based on what they can visually see, not the actual damage that will only be found once floors etc are taken out.

So a quote to rectify came in at £5k. Direct line said too much and sent out a  loss adjuster from Cunningham Lindsay who woefully under estimated the job. This meant that we then had to use Direct Line’s preferred bunch of cowboys Heighvale Ltd to do the repair, and they really were a bunch of cowboys! They tried to cover up the fact that joists needed replacing.  If I hadn’t of insisted on checking they would have just covered them up.  Plus they order the wrong shower trays x 2 etc.

Long story short Heighvale took 3 months to do a 3 week job the total cost went from our plumbers estimate of £5k to £13k. We ended up getting compensation via the Ombudsman but it was a terrible time.

In short the limit of liability is to what damage can be seen at the time. So the insurance company will agree to works say up to £1000  to replace carpets.  Its only when the carpets come up and the floor boards and joist are rotten that they will then authorise the further work based on that ‘new’ knowledge.  Its a brave plumber etc that will continue work without confirmation of payment from the insurance company.

I assume your insurer is saving money by getting the loss adjuster to FaceTime you rather than having to drive there.

Yep, normal. Wear/tear is not covered, which you knew already.

Yes, it may not be wear and tear but it’s the most likely cause. Won’t it be exciting to find out!

Get a plumber out to fix the leak sharpish.

Get an estimate to repair the damage, job jobbed.

There is some crappy practice going on – we changed our buildings insurance as ours would fix the repair but not ‘trace it’ – How the hell do you fix it if you aren’t going to find where it is. The guy came out but said he wasn’t allowed to trace it. Not happy.

Our new insurance traces and fixes.   We fortunately contacted a local guy, who cut a hole in the ceiling and discovered a tiny pin prick in the cold water pipe – repaired with the quick fit fittings having cut the section out and all OK – I fitted a new section of plaster board and skimmed. Was less than the ruddy excess, so didn’t claim.

If you think about it, most “escape of water” claims are as a result of wear and tear. Although this is a standard exclusion, the resulting damage caused is usually covered in full. Otherwise there’d be no cover. The actual bit of pipe or fitting that failed is not covered (literally pennies of cost).

The thing with loss adjusters is that fees paid by the insurers have dropped massively recently so apparently they do phone discussions, webcam, driveby – just about anything to save money (the adjusters are outsourced nearly every time).

Everyone wants cheap insurance = service falls.

Stick to your guns. Document everything. Complain.

The insurer has said that they won’t pay to fix the leak but will cover investigation and repairation.

This is perfectly normal. You are covered by your policy for the damage caused by a leak.

Finding and fixing the leak is your responsibility.

Fixing the damage caused by the leak and making good anything needed (that was caused by the leak or repair work) is the insurers responsibility.

So you pay the plumber to come out and find/fix the leak, if they need to rip out a shower unit to fix it, then that work is what you pay the plumber for.

Then the insurer inspects (in some way) assesses the cost, and pays to have the shower reinstalled etc, and any other damage caused by the leak put right.