Fire damage on your property can be a stressful and upsetting experience for all involved. This process can be helped by insurance companies, who can quickly set a plan of action and appoint a loss adjuster to begin the process of a fire damage claim. Conversely, an insurance company can move slowly with your damage claim in these situations, a difficult and frustrating response to the potentially traumatic experience of having fire damage in your property.
In this scenario, you can either continue to use the insurer, at the risk of your damage claim becoming an excruciatingly slow process, or you can appoint a traditional loss assessor to get compensation whilst they deal with the restoration of your property. The third solution is to hire an insurance claim service, such as All Property Claims, to assess your property, deal with loss adjusters, and restore fire damage.
For insurance companies unwilling to expend time and money on your case, All Property Claims can help manage the claims procedure with skill and experience. Read on to find out more about us, what fire damage is constituted as, all of the steps in the claim process, and a case study in which we’ve helped people who suffered fire damage to make a claim.
What Constitutes A Fire Damage Claim?
According to the Association of British Insurers, ‘insurance protects you against the cost of repairing or rebuilding your home if it is damaged or destroyed. It covers the structure of your home and any permanent fixtures and fittings, such as fitted kitchen units and bathroom suites.’
At All Property Claims, we manage a range of fire damage claims, whether your home has suffered catastrophic structural issues or smoke damage. We know exactly what is necessary to reverse the damage, however big or small. Fatal heat levels are the immediate danger of a fire, but even smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other chemical irritants, which can permanently damage your respiratory system. Even if your property hasn’t suffered total structural damage, any of these after-effects can be grounds for a fire damage claim.
The Different Types Of Fire Damage
There are three types of fire damage; caused by flames, smoke, or the process of extinguishing the fire itself. Flame damage can vary from what causes the fire, a naked flame creates a different effect than an electrical fire, and it is vital that whoever restores your property understands the nuances of fire damage, in order to ensure that your property doesn’t suffer from further structural or electrical issues.
Smoke damage lingers even when the fire is extinguished, as it tends to stick heavily to objects in your home such as walls, ceilings, flooring, and furniture, discolouring them due to the acidic residue. An overlooked type of fire damage arises from the water and chemicals employed to extinguish the fire, leading to insecurities in the structural integrity of your property and leak damage.
Issues With Contacting Insurers Directly
Going through an insurer directly can work reasonably effectively – if they act quickly. A good insurer should succinctly appoint a surveyor and a loss adjuster, they should recommend builders to hire, and should be able to assist with organising alternative accommodation for you. However, in reality, this type of insurance claim is expensive, time-consuming, and can result in them losing money – something they’re not interested in, resulting in inaction and a lack of communication.
Insurers can leave difficult decisions and processes, such as hiring builders, up to you, meaning that you might hire people who don’t completely understand the situation and lack knowledge in safely rectifying fire damage. They might have put you in inadequate alternative accommodation, or might simply not communicate with you about important receipts.
Appointing A Loss Assessor
If you’re frustrated or upset by a lack of action or reasonable dialogue from an insurer, you can appoint a loss assessor, who will negotiate a claim settlement with the insurer. However, it is important to note that whilst you will receive a cheque for the damage, the building works won’t be organized or completed for you. Assessors usually put you in touch with builders and restoration companies but then leave the process entirely to you, a risk if you have never dealt with builders on larger projects, or lack the time to properly help manage this huge task. You’ll also be charged for their services, deducting from money that could go towards the restoration of your home.
The Fire Damage Claims Process
If you are tired of inaction from an insurer or are inexperienced with managing the reconstruction of your property, you might wish to have this process organised by someone else. The structural repairs, restoration works, odour removal, electrical and plumbing works, can all be managed by a company that can oversee the complications of the insurance claim process. With an experienced insurance claims specialist such as All Property Claims, the fire damage claims process can be dealt with constant dedication and canny expertise.
The claims process for fire damage would begin with you calling us, and we’d collect your insurer’s details. We’d also book a surveyor to visit your property to take images and measurements in order to define, in detail, how the fire damage arose and how it has affected your property. We would then prepare a report and quote to send to the insurer. We try to do this within 48 hours of our visit, providing succinct action, contrary to the slower timescales of insurers.
After the report is sent off, we will ask for the insurers to hire a lost adjuster to meet the surveyor to agree on all of the costs necessary for the reconstruction process. Once an agreement has been made in relation to costs, the restoration contractor will begin to dry the wet areas and commence the reinstatement works, bringing your property back to the way it was before the fire damage. When this process is completed, we will send the bill to the insurers, and you will pay nothing except your policy excess.
Benefits Of This Service
There are real benefits in having a company deal with the fire damage claims process on your behalf. Firstly, you won’t have to deal directly with your insurer, builders, surveyors, or loss adjusters, giving you more time to yourself in what might be following an upsetting experience. This might be a time when you will be relocated from your home due to fire damage, and delegating responsibility can give you more time with your friends and family, as well as creating s space to consider the situation at hand, stress-free. Whatsmore, the claim process will be significantly sped up when a company deals with the process, with more proactive action being taken in negotiating with insurers and loss adjusters.
For some, not dealing with the situation directly can be a cause of stress in itself, but, with a company such as All Property Claims, we’ll keep you consistently updated and make the insurance claim process transparent. We have years of experience dealing with damage claim situations and know exactly how the successfully undertake the process. At All Property Claims, we don’t charge for our time and only take on claims we know will succeed. We are an FCA Regulated company and have never once had a complaint upheld against us by the Regulator, a testament to our ardent professionalism and dedication to your case.
A Case Study
There are a number of situations which demonstrate how a company such as All Property Claims can assist you with your fire damage claim. For example, in a North London house, an elderly couple experienced an electrical fire caused by a microwave. With 3rd-degree fire damage swamping the kitchen, a huge amount of smoke and soot wreathing throughout the property, and damage to the supporting timbers, this was an upsetting and troubling experience.
Even with this information, the insurance company didn’t provide any quick action and didn’t organise any alternative accommodation. They also dealt with the cleaning and the replacement of the property’s contents in a somewhat heartless manner, not truly understanding the client’s sentimental attachment to the property’s contents and their sentimental value.
When the client contacted All Property Claims, we helped them organise alternative accommodation, and then negotiated with the insurer and loss adjuster, who were both reluctant to undertake proposals for reconstruction. When we finally agreed on a list of repairs and costing details, the insurer wanted to use their own contractors, but we persuaded them to use our own team, who repaired the electrical, plumbing, kitchen, bathroom, and floor works successfully.
All Property Claims
If you have experienced problems with an insurer or a loss adjuster and need help with a property damage claim, we’re here to help. From fire to leak damage, we cover London and its surrounding areas and have 24/7 availability. Find out more about our services by getting in touch today at 0203 011 2495, or by filling in our online enquiry form.