It’s understandable for your home or commercial premises to be a source of pride and comfort, and for any incidence of fire damage to therefore be greatly concerning. There are many ways to prevent fires and blazes from occurring, but this will never provide a 100% guarantee of safety. For advice about preventative measures, information about the most frequent causes of domestic fires and, most importantly, how you can deal with the repercussions, please read this guide from All Property Claims.
Further your understanding of fire damage claims and property damage insurance.
Common Fire Damage Hazards
As obvious as it may seem, fire presents a significant risk – it can kill or seriously injure as well as damage or destroy buildings, equipment, stock, and prized possessions. Though you can prepare for and guard against disaster, fire hazards are everywhere. Objects and actions can ignite a fire or cause a fire to spread once started. A fuel that is easy to ignite or a heat source like a broken appliance could pose a risk. Old electrical appliances like a fridge or microwave can cause a fire even if turned off. The risk of fire is all around us like recklessly discarding a cigarette butt, neglecting to have a wood stove chimney cleaned or failing to perform regular checks on household appliances.
The Importance of Making a Fire Claim
Reporting the fire incident and carefully describing the extent of damage as soon as possible after an accident will help you avoid a lot of trouble down the road. It is important to describe what appears to you to be damaged but equally to make clear to insurers that the full extent of damage must be assessed by professionals.
We don’t charge property owners to deal with their fire damage claims for them but cover our costs from undertaking the building repairs approved by the insurer. This is why we take the responsibility of assessing the works and negotiating with the insurer to get the works and costs agreed upon. We verify claims by a detailed fact find right at the start. We are thorough and relentless so you can be confident that your claim will be successful. It is extremely unlikely that an insurance claim we submit will fail. If successful, within 48 hours of a settlement, we begin the process of restoration, cleaning, drying and reinstatement depending on the circumstances.
The Aftermath of An Accident
After a building fire, you should put your faith in a professional team who knows how to fight your corner effectively. We don’t leave anything to chance; there is very little room for error, from expertly assessing the damage to negotiating all the necessary works with your insurer and handling all of the restoration and building work ourselves. We don’t just hand you over to a third-party builder like traditional loss assessors.
We can comprehensively set out the steps necessary to completely restore a home to its pre-loss condition. Not every fire or property damage incident requires extensive work or structural repairs but if this is necessary, we can still handle it. We will take into account all types of fire claims, not just those related to major incidents. With us, you have a right to expect the best from your fire damage claim as our employees are expertly skilled at negotiating with difficult insurers and loss adjusters
A Transparent Process
We take pride in offering a transparent process that involves updating you along the way. We’re committed to keeping you informed about the status of your claim as well as any decisions and changes regarding repairs. As soon as you instruct us to represent you, we will schedule a detailed survey during which our surveyor will take pictures, a video, measurements and moisture readings where the fire has been put out by water. Our surveyor will thoroughly record information about what happened and when. We will send documentation to the insurer within 48 working hours of our visit. In some cases, we will arrange additional surveys to check plumbing installations which may have suffered damage, along with a comprehensive electrical check.
Once your claim has been submitted with a detailed report and list of proposed repairs, we will arrange with insurers to appoint a loss adjuster with sufficient seniority to deal with the anticipated size of the claim. We will set an appointment for a meeting between our surveyor and the loss adjuster on-site to engage the insurer’s liability for the claim and agree on the scope of repairs.
Repairs will be carried out by us and the bill will go directly to your insurance company. In the end, you only pay your policy excess.
Why to Choose Us
One of the many benefits of choosing us is that we are authorised and regulated by the FCA. We will make sure that all damage that insurers are responsible for under the terms of the policy is accurately identified and made known to insurers – no shortcuts and no omissions. We are successful in arguing what should and should not be included by insurers in any claim because loss adjusters and insurers both respect our professionalism, knowledge and sense of fairness in comparison with other firms. You do not need to deal with the insurer, their loss adjusters, surveyors and claims technicians.
You also don’t need to convince various builders to provide quotes to rectify fire or smoke damage as the insurer will have you do. Builders in the marketplace are reluctant to spend the time to do this to the level of detail that the insurer needs as they are not being paid for their time. We will do all of that for you with the passion, professionalism and care that is needed. Your claim will be handled by a dedicated claims manager in our office throughout.
Alternate Claim Types
There are several types of property damage claims including water damage, impact to property from vehicle accidents and malicious or criminal behaviour. At All Property Claims, we can deal with all of these. Below is an overview of claim types:
Malicious Damage
Vandalism is unavoidable, regardless of where you live. No matter what form of malicious damage your property has suffered, be it cosmetic damage or long-lasting harm, it’s important to contact the police first and obtain a crime reference number, as this will help with your property damage insurance and damage claim. After the police have been informed, All Property Claims can then step in and conduct emergency repairs while your property damage claim is being processed.
Leaking Pipes
Insurance companies may advise you to take whatever action is necessary to find and stop the water damage, but doing so might mean tearing up your flooring or ruining a wall. The team at All Property Claims help you through the process by arranging a professional leak detection engineer who can assist you in locating the leak in a non-intrusive way without causing damage to pinpoint your leak.
Weather Damage
Insurers only agree to pay claims for roof damage in storm or heavy rain situations. Insurance companies will want to know what caused the roof damage before they agree to pay for your repairs if you have a leaky roof or if it was damaged after a sudden downpour of rain. In order to ensure that your insurer engages liability for this type of claim, we can assist by arranging an expert leak detection professional to provide an expertly written report of the cause of the damage. We can then progress your storm damage insurance claim for the required repairs.
All Property Claims: Overseeing Your Fire Claim or Smoke Damage Claim
If you have unfortunately become a victim of fire damage, we can arrange an immediate survey to assess the situation and give you advice, and should you agree to instruct us, to organise the safe removal of the debris. We will also handle the first crucial meeting with your insurer’s loss adjusters to ensure that they cover everything from alternative accommodation for you and your family, to restoration, cleaning and building repairs. From getting an expert assessment of works and costs for your insurance company to completing property damage repairs, All Property Claims is your established local specialist – providing an end-to-end service for homeowners who have made or are about to make a fire or smoke damage claim
As a long-established insurance claims management company, we know exactly what it takes to get your claim agreed. Not only that, but our service is completely free if we carry out all the building and restoration/drying repair work at your property. Want more details about the services we offer? Our team are ready and waiting to deal with your enquiry 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Simply call us on 0203 011 2495 or fill in our enquiry form and we’ll call you back as soon as we can.