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exasperated2017

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  1. Hello again. I've dug out the insurance policy, and all it says is 'Aviva Home Insurance'. I took it out a long time ago, so this might have been before insurance companies started using names for particular types of cover. I should add that I paid for an addition called 'accidental damage to services, pipes, cables, fixed glass and sanitary fittings'. As for my next door neighbours, they did have a water problem around last year. They had to have all the floorboards ripped up, and joists under the floor replaced. However, as we hardly ever saw these people, and they've since moved, I can't say how many rooms this involved, or what the cause was.
  2. Thank you for that. My postcode is NE33 5PQ. BTW, please don't think I have been ignoring people's advice. The truth is, I haven't had time to do anything yet, and after having to stay awake all night, I'm exhausted. This whole thing has hit me right out of the blue. Please be sure that I'm very grateful for everyone's advice here - you've already helped me ten times more than the insurer has.
  3. Hello again - OP here. Thank you so much for these replies. The advice in them is really valuable. A couple more things: 1) One poster asked what my insurance company is. It's Aviva. I don't know the exact name of the policy, as the documents are 'buried' at the moment, but we took it out as a standard home insurance policy. 2) There have been a couple of serious developments since I posted, and I would appreciate your opinions. On the night I posted, I wound up having to stay up all night, sat in a chair downstairs, because the smell was so overpowering, I had to keep every door and window open, so I had to stay away in case of burglars. This is a crazy situation. The smell is not the damp smell but the smell of crystals that the insurers put down to remove the damp smell. The smell is just as bad right now, so I'm looking at things such as charcoal or bicarbonate of soda to try to get rid of it. You literally can hardly breathe in here. But the most serious development is this. They sent someone yesterday, and this person said he was sure it was groundwater, and that the only solution would either be to 'live with it' (he actually said that) or else have the whole of the bottom of the house sealed, which will cost tens of thousands. And groundwater is not covered by insurance. Now, I've heard before that insurers sometimes say it's groundwater when it isn't, just to get out of paying, and what I've read on this website tells me that Aviva appears to be a company lots of people have had problems with, so I'm wondering if I'm being treated fairly and squarely. So is there any way I can prove whether it's groundwater or not? One person who came six weeks ago tested for chlorine and found it, and concluded that this showed it was from the drain, but now the drain has been patched. We've lived in this house for over fifty years and there has never been a problem with groundwater - I looked under the floorboards myself only a few months ago because of a different matter and it was bone dry.
  4. Thanks. It's a drain under the house. I should point out that one of the problems is that I can't even be sure it's this, because the water is still coming even though the pipe has been patched. It's a semi-detached house, and the water might be coming from the other property, but short of taking up all the floorboards, it's hard to locate the source. But I must emphasise that the only reason I'm posting this is because I want to know if there are people you can employ to give an independent report - a report that will help me get the result from my insurer that I should be entitled to. I'd heard people called 'loss adjusters' can do this, but after looking on the Web, it's seems they're mainly an American thing.
  5. Hello everybody This is my first post - I joined CAG just for this reason. I and my mother are both pensioners and we have been with the same home insurer for over 50 years and had never made one claim up until now. But now we have, and I feel we are being fobbed off with an unacceptable service, and I just don't know what to do. I'll describe the problem as briefly as possible. Six weeks ago I discovered that there was a lot of water under the floorboards after noticing a damp patch, and bailed literally gallons out. This was traced to a cracked drainpipe when we got the insurers in, they only put a patch on the pipe, even though the pipe might be 70 or more years old and might be cracked elsewhere too. I wanted the whole pipe either replaced or lined but a patch was all they would do. the water kept coming, and the electrical wiring was just lying in the water. I told the insurer how dangerous this was he said it would be OK. this is really old wiring, probably from when the house was built, and by now in no condition to resist lying in water. The insurer's representative said it would be OK because if the water did get into the wiring, all that would happen was that it would trip a circuit breaker. I told him our wiring is so old that there are no circuit breakers, only fuses. He didn't seem interested. the worst thing is, they have just let the situation get worse and worse. For days we could not wash, bathe or wash clothes because of the cracked drain. Then when the drain was 'fixed' and the problem still persisted, the house gradually began to smell horribly of mould - a really overpowering stench. My mother is old and frail, and I am really worried that she has to breathe this. I kept phoning and phoning, and not getting anywhere. Now the whole house stinks and we have to have every single window open, despite the weather. They have come and put crystals down to take away the smell, these have an acrid smell that is making us both ill. all the carpets and all the furniture is impregnated with the mould smell - we might have to throw them away. They have also put in driers (weeks after I asked them to) they are costing a fortune to run. the water is keeping coming - over 300 gallons have been bailed out so far - so whatever it is, it hasn't been fixed yet. I am convinced that if I stopped phoning the insurers, I would never hear from them again. They seem totally uninterested in addressing the problem properly even though we have been exemplary customers. Is there any kind of independent person I could employ in order to come around and assess things and give a professional opinion on what the insurer should have done and has failed to do? Someone who could write an expert report that I could show to the insurer and say, "This is what I want to claim, here is a report from an expert, and I think you should provide what it suggests"? When you are in any situation where a service provider is giving you a poor service, you have to find some sort of professional who can give an expert but entirely independent opinion, just don't know who this might be in the case of an insurer. Do such people exist? Thanks.
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