I came home one evening to find water pouring under the kitchen door. The tank in the attic had overflowed after the ballcock valve broke and brought down part of the kitchen ceiling. My insurer, Lloyds, speedily dispatched a surveyor and a drying company, but two months later nothing further has happened. The drying company won’t install dehumidifiers until the rest of the soaked ceiling is safely removed and this hasn’t been done because Lloyds has not yet approved the repair costs quoted by its contractor. Meanwhile I am living in a wet and increasingly mouldy house and more cracks are appearing in the ceiling.
LA, Hereford
You are in your seventies and the health implications of two months in a sodden house are serious. As are the consequences for the rest of the property as the damp and mould spread. Your bedroom and bathroom were also affected. It’s shocking Lloyds did not authorise removal of the ceiling so drying work could start while it pondered the repair quote. It’s also shocking you were not offered alternative accommodation. Lloyds admitted that it had let you down and offered a paltry £200 for the “inconvenience”. It was another three weeks before the ceiling was removed, and the repairs were finally completed five months after that.
Same old problems at ‘transformed’ insurer Esure
Most companies compete to attract more customers. Not the insurer Esure, which informed one policyholder that, due to a system upgrade, it was dumping him. He was lucky. Other customers suspect they too have been dumped while still being owed large sums in unpaid claims. This upgrade of Esure’s aims, it proclaims smugly and ambiguously, is part of “fixing insurance for good”.
“Claims are often referred to as the moment of truth in insurance,” according to its vision statement, “so in early 2022, Esure embarked on a journey to revolutionise [its] claims and fraud transformation.”
What does this revolution look like? VG of Bristol tried to make a claim on her home insurance policy after a water pipe burst. She was unable to log in to her account and spent an hour on hold on its phone line. It turned out her policy renewal four months earlier had been lost during the system upgrade, although her £477 premium had been taken. She was offered a refund and invited to take out a new policy, which meant she would not be covered for her claim. Esure then offered an indemnity certificate. It would pocket the premium, issue an indemnity certificate to cover the claim, then require her to buy a new 12-month policy, leaving her hundreds of pounds out of pocket. She asked if a new policy could be created and backdated. Not possible, said Esure. VG ended up paying for the repair herself.
Meanwhile, AL of Merthyr Tydfil was involved in a no-fault accident. Esure declared his car a writeoff in February last year, but the finance company that provided the funding for hire purchase has yet to receive the settlement money. AL is therefore having to continue to make payments for a car he no longer has.
Esure blamed “human error” for both botched claims. VG has been refunded £477 for the nonexistent policy and for the repair costs and given £125 in goodwill. The company claimed that the settlement sum for AL’s car was paid to the finance firm a year ago, but returned “some months later” and, due to an oversight, not reissued. It’s now been remitted and AL has received £250 in compensation.
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