Having purchased house insurance from Barclays, it has been my extreme misfortune to discover that their claims process is 'handled' (on Barclays behalf) by the other 3 companies above. By handled I mean that they pass policy holders through an ever increasing series of call centre type operations throughout the UK. Each stage of the route is managed by personnel who in the main are unable to comply with simple requests (eg: a)can you send an e-mail to confirm the date and expected time that your surveyor will arrive, or b) can I discuss your proposed work spec with a technical person, or c) can you advise what your process actually is)

Again If you pose a slightly more complex question, such as when will I be able to schedule the workmen to start on my house which is deteriorating daily due to Avivas avoidance techniques, you will find that their call centre phones click and you are left listening to piped music or transfered to yet another person who continues to play their 'stonewalling' game.

Does anyone have similar experience or could offer advice?

Thank you in anticipation

Hi Pilot

I'm sorry that you are having issues trying to get your claim resolved. I work at aviva and would be happy to see what is happening and see what I can do for you?

I'll need some details, so if you can send them over to [email protected] I'll investigate.

Thanks

Well its another month gone by and I am still listening to all the piped music at Aviva / Crawfords. Did get a letter yesterday sent to my previous address by Aprea asking if I wanted to close my claim. Thank you Beccus for your response on this post - Since providing you with my details I guess you are up against the Aviva wall of silence too. I will be actively pursuing with the financial ombudsman as I paid my premium in advance and in good faith and was supposed to be covered by the Barclays policy and the damage was caused by a neighbouring property. None of which seems to matter once you have paid your premium. This is the worst organisation I have come across.

I too am having a total nightmare with my Barclays/Aviva contents insurance claim following a burglary. The unbelievable incompetence of Crawfords handling of the claim and - next link in the chain - Ivals' assessment procedures have left me stressed, angry and sad since much of my claim had emotional attachments.

Claiming for the household side of the burglary felt like wheeling and dealing in a bargain basement, and took up a lot of time and research. Finally agreement was reached. Ten weeks on a resounding silence has only just been broken on valuation of jewellery taken and the result would be laughable if I were not so sad, and totally unacceptable.

I am also bemused that Goldsmiths Jewellers are used for do the valuations and are also the beneficiaries of the voucher system. I have an uneasy feeling that the cash settlement offered is minus a discount to the insurers which the Ombudsman has deemed inappropriate.

The service I have experienced has been unprofessional and frustrating. Do other members have advice/encouragement?

Hello Alys

I am very sorry but not surprised to hear of your encounters with Aviva/Crawfords/Ival. Are you able to get a second valuation done by your own jeweller? Would have thought that you could contest their figures, particularly if there is a substantial difference.? Are you sure that you have to accept vouchers?

Since posting my last response I have escalated my complaint to the Aviva CEO and copied in Barclays. If theres no satisfactory response from them within 10 days then I am taking everything to the Financial Ombudsman.

Its totally un-acceptable in this day and age that large companies can take premiums and avoid claims in the manner that these companies are working. I note that most newspapers are carrying large ads extolling the virtue of Aviva Insurance and the Aviva website motto is 'Our purpose is to bring prosperity and peace of mind to our customers' Of course as you know this is blatantly untrue if you have to make a claim.

Rgds

Pilot2

Hi, I hear you, and yet the story goes on.

I agree, Aviva, Crawfords, Insure repair, Asprea, these companies are totally lacking in manners, professionalism, courtesy, understanding, my roof leak caused by storm damage was called in on the 22.1.10(morning) and it is now 24.1.10 (evening), all they have done is to pass me from one lackadaisical company to another more incompetent company.

How hard is it to arrange for someone to carry out repairs on a roof, all the responses I received were that I would have to arrange and pay for the work to be carried out myself, and that the monies for the work carried out may not be reimbursed.

Why do I pay these cretins an insurance policy, when they want myself to do their work for them. I have e-mailed who I can just now and the ombudsman too

Hi Seamore

I am sorry but not surprised to hear that you are having the run around from Aviva, Crawfords etc. Personally I had water coming into both my livingroom and bedroom caused by flood waters from a neighbouring property in June last year. I had to move out of my property and into accommodation which was over 40 miles away for several months. Throughout this time I tried without success to obtain a glimmer of interest from Aviva / Asprea/ Crawfords other than them sending out a surveyor and a loss adjustor. Their complete lack of urgency and interest meant that some of the structural timbers rotted and I was forced to bring in a team of timber specialists at several thousand pounds of my own money to remedy the situation. I also had to employ a roofing contractor as some of the decking was badly affected, unfortunately the roofing contractor was not very good and I had to call in a second contractor to remedy - again I had to pay out a substantial sum despite my policy covering flood water. Just as the waiting period was up with respect to the Ombudsman and my initial letter to them and the Aviva CEO. I was advised that a Aviva Manager would call and arrange to meet me at the house. We finally agreed a figure to pay for some but not all of the work and a cheque duly came out. It has been for me a totally traumatic experience, seeing my new property deteriorate and no one in Aviva in the least concerned. I understand that they may have downsized and the remaining personnel are somewhat demoralised. However I have never had such poor in fact absent service from any other organisation in the UK. I wish you all the best of luck with your roof, you may have to follow a similar excercise to mine, take photos, get estimates and try to get the leak fixed quickly. Let me know how it goes

Hi pilot2,

Sorry to hear about your "experience" with the inadequate companies,

I am holding my breath for a few e-mails tomorrow morning and hope fully a roofer later in the day, I have found another good forum about aviva and co.

moneysupermarket.com community - Aviva Home Insurance - Opinions

Thanks for the advice, I hope that they learn from their bad press.

Seamore.

Hi Seamore

Yes I had a quick look over the other forum. Just keep all your correspondence by e-mail to ensure that you have everything documented. Yes they do play the customer off against each other, I had months of being piggy in the middle and I had full accidental cover too. They also do everything possible to delay admitting liability to you so I would ensure that you put a timeline into your correspondence with them to get payment. Make sure that your estimate also fully describes the storm damage, I would also ask them to send a rep to view as you dont want any delays in them admitting their liability. Theres every chance that they will try to wriggle out of any payment so be very careful if you are forced like me to pay in advance. Good Luck

I am unfortunately caught in similar problems as reported here with Asprea. It is not that they reject our claim, they just don't respond, they completely ignore any correspondence and this has been going on for more than a year.

I am very disappointed that Barclays works with such a company and can only recommend not to get home insurance from Barclays.

Hi pilot2,

You bought your policy through barclays but the insurance is obviously underwritten by Aviva.You are now like myself being given the runaround by Aviva the company that likes to take your premium but runs a mile when you put a claim in.

The omnbudsman is a very slow process and I would advise anybody with a strong claim to fast track to the county court.Before doing this I would carry out a subject access report with Aviva and you can find out what this is and how to do it by reading my other posts.

I personally have now moved all of my insurance to another reputable company and I would advise others to do the same.The good thing is people are now starting to become aware of the Aviva experience and are now insuring elsewhere.

Good luck with your claim.

Hi to all those having claims problems with Aviva,

I have just issued county court proceedings and been awarded judgement after fighting for

ages to get paid out on what was a straightforward claim.I went the financial omnbudsman route first and to be honest found them a complete waste of time with this type of case - also the length of time you have to get your case dealt with is ridiculous.

My advice to anybody experiencing problems would be to carry out a subject access request first and then issue proceedings at the county court without delay.With most insurance companies you put in a claim are dealt with by a claims assessor and then recieve your payment .

In my experience Aviva deal with your claim differently - Firstly they give you the runaround for as long as possible as described in everyone elses posts - and then they refuse to pay out - the next step in their claims procedure is you have to issue proceedings at county court.They are without doubt the worst insurance company i have dealt with in 30 yrs and in my opinion are best completely avoided.Its no surprise

Aviva are the insurance company with the most complaints to the financial omnbudsman !

It doesn't matter who you deal with - they are all the same nightmare! Their job is to reduce the loss to a minimum and then put a shoddy builder in who quotes the cheapest for the work. I casn categorically tell you that is what happens. I lived through an underpinning nightmare and ended up having to instruct my own engineer (and risk having to pay him myself) because the work being done on my house was so shoddy. I forced the issue to get a whole new piled foundation rather than just one wall underpinned. Everyone kept telling me how wonderful the underpinning company was as they had just moved a bit lighthouse intact. If you remember someone got killed in that slow moving process!

I am just about to deal with Asprea. Water leaking from under the bathroom has seeped into laminate flooring soaking the underlay. I was told to get my own estimates - how you can get estimates when you don't have authority to break up a floor to see how far water has penetrated I really dont know - looks like another fight on the horizon!!!!!

Wish me luck !!!!!

Hi TinaCh,

I'm sorry to hear that you need to make a claim and I hope everything gets resolved for you as soon as possible.

If there's anything you're unsure about, or generally have any queries about the claim or the process, you can contact the claims handler

on the details given to you when the incident was reported. Alternatively if you email me I can then liase with the relevant team to

answer your questions.

My email address is [email protected]

Kind regards,

Martin Banwell

Social Media and Web Support

Aviva

It doesn't matter who you deal with - they are all the same nightmare! Their job is to reduce the loss to a minimum and then put a shoddy builder in who quotes the cheapest for the work. I casn categorically tell you that is what happens. I lived through an underpinning nightmare and ended up having to instruct my own engineer (and risk having to pay him myself) because the work being done on my house was so shoddy. I forced the issue to get a whole new piled foundation rather than just one wall underpinned. Everyone kept telling me how wonderful the underpinning company was as they had just moved a bit lighthouse intact. If you remember someone got killed in that slow moving process!

I am just about to deal with Asprea. Water leaking from under the bathroom has seeped into laminate flooring soaking the underlay. I was told to get my own estimates - how you can get estimates when you don't have authority to break up a floor to see how far water has penetrated I really dont know - looks like another fight on the horizon!!!!!

Wish me luck !!!!!

Hi TinaCH,

Aviva support are fire fighting again - I had a claim and they didnt want to know, they tried every way possible to wriggle out of paying out ,I had to take them to court to get paid in the end. I did a subject access report which i still have and they lied through their teeth to me to avoid paying.

A friend of mine also had a large claim with them and they were a nightmare to deal with same scenario they like taking your money but run a mile when you put a claim in.

Do what I did Insure with the NFU or another reputable company.

Great to see them spending millions on tv trying to attract new customers its a shame they cant look after the ones they already have.Read my other posts to see how they treated Mr Henshaw an OAP.

The 0844 967 3030 on the Asprea website goes into a dead end answering machine saying the person is no longer there and to contact customer services, with no telephone number given. It is their main contact phone number and is given out by my insurance agents. This is not good customer service. Please give me a number which is in use.

They refuse to honour my claim which is a pure accident to my building by the next door's scaffolders. Dreadful. Don't use them.

The 0844 967 3030 on the Asprea website goes into a dead end answering machine saying the person is no longer there and to contact customer services, with no telephone number given. It is their main contact phone number and is given out by my insurance agents. This is not good customer service. Please give me a number which is in use.

They refuse to honour my claim which is a pure accident to my building by the next door's scaffolders. Dreadful. Don't use them.

Hi SteadyLL,

I've just tried the number you posted (0844 9673030). I had no claim number to enter on the automated system. If you fail to enter this after 2 requests you'll then be put through to an agent. I was connected right away. Can you try again without entering your claim number.

Kind regards,

Martin Banwell

Social Media and Web Support

Aviva

Hi steady LL,

As people are told to have their claim number handy when ringing ,and are then asked to enter this by the automated system I can understand your frustration at not being able to get through.Abysmal service as usual.

Isnt it strange that when you ring to renew and pay your premiums that system always seems to work perfectly.Maybe they should install the same system on the claims line.

I had the same problem with Aviva you call to pay your premium ,2 rings and you get an answer - you call about your claim and you spend 5 minutes listening to piped music or are put on hold - strange that !

I just called 0844 967 3030 which finally goes directly to a human being. At last. About time.

With the old answering machine message which went nowhere, there was no reference number requested btw, just an dead end message. For a month. Glad they fixed it. Customer complaints are listened to.

Hi SteadyLL,

 

I've just tried the number you posted (0844 9673030). I had no claim number to enter on the automated system. If you fail to enter this after 2 requests you'll then be put through to an agent. I was connected right away. Can you try again without entering your claim number.

 

Kind regards,

 

Martin Banwell

Social Media and Web Support

Aviva

I just called 0844 967 3030 which finally goes directly to a human being. At last. About time.

 

With the old answering machine message which went nowhere, there was no reference number requested btw, just an dead end message. For a month. Glad they fixed it. Customer complaints are listened to.

Hi SteadyLL

Glad to hear you got it all sorted.

Kind Regards

Rachel Walker

Social Media and Web Support

Aviva