Do Home Insurance Companies Arrange Repairs?

Additionally, you may find clauses in your policy that state your buildings and/or contents cover is no longer valid if your home is left unoccupied for longer than 60 days.

If you regularly split your time between several residences or have plans to stay elsewhere for longer than 60 days, it might be worth checking your insurance policy and contacting your insurer to make sure your home will still be covered.

Some policies may also have additional exceptions and limitations, so it’s important to check your policy documents to make sure they outline the right level of coverage for you.

Additional Cover

When it comes to protecting your home and belongings, there are a few other events that you might like to protect against. Your insurer may provide these as optional add-ons for an additional charge.

This might include:

• Home emergency cover

• Legal cover

• Bicycle cover

• Accidental damage (most home insurance policies offer limited accidental damage cover as standard, with the choice to upgrade your coverage)

• Personal belongings (for the valuable items you regularly carry with you outside of the home, like your phone or jewellery)

Will My Home Insurance Company Arrange Repairs?

Generally speaking, no — your home insurance company won’t arrange your repairs. They’ll usually only be involved in the claims side of things, and even then, there are a few things you should know about the claims process…

How Does the Process Work?

1. Reporting the Damage

To begin, you’ll need to get in touch with your insurance provider. When you make the call to your insurance company, they’ll usually ask for some preliminary details of the damage, before advising you to gather evidence and go out and seek quotes from the various tradespeople needed to repair your property.

This can be a challenge in itself; firstly, to understand the full picture of the damage and the work needed to repair it, and secondly, to find tradespeople who are willing to quote for and complete an insurance-related repairs project.

How Can I Find the Right Tradespeople for the Job?

Your home insurance provider may provide a list of recommended tradespeople to quote for and complete your repairs. They may even appoint a building contractor directly to carry out quotes and repairs.

However, it’s worth noting that these contractors being on your insurer’s “approved” list doesn’t guarantee quality or timely work. In fact, they’re likely an “approved” contractor because they charge a competitive rate to the insurer.

There are various pros and cons to using the contractors suggested by your insurance company, which we’ll explore in a bit more detail further down the page. But whichever route you go down, it’s highly likely you’ll still be instructed to gather quotes for the repairs and submit your claim to your insurer for approval.

Top tip: Sourcing quotes from experienced and reliable tradespeople can be a huge challenge. Remove the headache from this part of the process by bringing in a specialist insurance repairs contractor, like Action Insurance Repair. We’ll not only be on hand to complete a thorough assessment of the damage to your property within 48 hours of receiving your call, but we’ll also be there to support you through every stage of the claims process, including quoting for and completing the repairs work to a high standard.

2. Getting Your Claim Approved

Once you’ve gathered your quotes (or brought in the experts to sort this for you), you’ll need to present your claim to the insurance company. You can opt to handle this part yourself, however, where the damage is extensive we always recommend bringing on board a loss assessor, who will support from the very earliest stages to make sure the damage assessment and repair quotes are accurate, then liaise with the insurance company, or their appointed representative, on your behalf to secure the best possible outcome for your claim.

With the claim submitted, your insurer will review all of the documentation and come back to you with a decision on how much they’re willing to pay out to cover the cost of the repairs. There’s often a negotiation phase before the final decision in which an agreement is reached about the final settlement amount.

This is where having a loss assessor acting on your behalf can really come in handy and save you having to spend out of your own pocket, as a lot of the time, insurer’s don’t pay out the full fee to cover the repairs you’ve been quoted for.

A loss assessor will act in your best interest when leading settlement negotiations, and will be there to challenge any offers made that are not in your favour. They’ll also be on hand to help you gather additional documentation and evidence requested by the insurer, answer any queries and questions raised by you or your insurer, and help you to navigate any other hurdles that might crop up.

When it comes to choosing your tradespeople, you’ll want to make sure your chosen contractor agrees with your loss assessor on the required scope of repairs, so everyone acting on your behalf has the same understanding of what’s required and can challenge any disputes raised by your insurer. It’s worth keeping in mind that if you’ve chosen to work with a contractor that has been recommended by your insurer, they may not always be willing to side with you in the event that your insurer disputes the scope of works required or the costs that have been quoted.

Do I Need a Loss Assessor?

When you haven’t had to make a claim for home insurance repairs before, the whole process can feel completely overwhelming. Trying to navigate this process on your own can cause a lot of additional stress — especially if your insurance provider is reluctant to pay out the full amount of your claim.

Instructing a loss assessor will take a lot of the stress and uncertainty out of the situation. You’ll be set up for success from the offset, safe in the knowledge that the damage has been thoroughly assessed and the claim is being handled with an expert in your corner.

At Action Insurance Repair, we’re partnered with several trusted loss assessors across the Northwest and will be able to provide recommendations on our initial site visit. From there, your loss assessor will handle your entire claim on your behalf, communicating directly with your insurance company while we take care of the repairs side of things.

With a full team of trades under one roof, producing a repair quote becomes a breeze. And once your claim has been approved, we’ll be there to project manage all of your repair work, visiting regularly on-site as required to ensure the quality and timely completion of the job, so you never need to shop around or stress about juggling lots of different schedules to get the work done.

3. Receiving your insurance payout

When your claim is successful, your insurer will make a payout based on the costs and losses detailed in your claim. This usually happens in one of four ways:

• They’ll make a direct payment to yourself, giving you a pot of money to manage the repairs

• They’ll ask you to pay out of your own pocket and send them a bill once the work is complete (known as reimbursement)

• They’ll opt to make payment directly to the contractors you’re working with (usually the case if you’ve chosen contractors that have been suggested by your insurer)

• They’ll make payment directly to your appointed loss assessor’s FCA-approved client account

4. Repairing your property

The repair process is different for every property that has suffered damage. However, there are a few things that must happen in the event of certain disasters, like flood or fire.

If your home is flooded, the first thing to be aware of is that flood water is not safe water — it is often contaminated by sewage and other waste. As a result, even if the water looks clean and the flooding is minimal, your home will likely not be safe to live in until the water is drained, the damaged and contaminated materials are removed, and the property has been professionally cleaned and treated.

The extent of this work will be made apparent in your flood damage assessment and thus will be a part of your insurance claim.

If your home is damaged by a fire, there are likewise precautions that should be taken to ensure the safety of you and your family.

Smoke and fire damage can extend beyond what’s visible, leaving structures vulnerable to collapse. Not only this, but residing in a smoke-damaged building can be a major risk to health due to breathing in contaminated air.

In the event of a fire at your home, you’ll need to remove all of the smoke-damage fixtures, fittings, and furnishings before repairs can take place.

However, it’s important not to start disposing of items until after you’ve had an expert complete a thorough fire damage assessment and your insurance company has had the opportunity to inspect the damaged items. Jumping ahead and clearing away damaged items could place you in a weaker position when it comes to submitting and evidencing your claim, which may affect your claim and final settlement.

Should I Find My Own Tradespeople, or Go With My Insurer’s Suggestions?

As with any big decision, there are several pros and cons to either option. Choosing contractors that have been suggested by your insurer does have its pros in that you’ll have peace of mind knowing that the repair costs are more than likely to be settled, meaning a reduced financial burden for you.

However, you’ll also have limited control over who you work with, who is coming into your home to complete the repairs, and what the finished standard of work will be. You’ll also be less involved in any communications, and therefore left out of decisions about how your property is to be reinstated.

Choosing your own tradespeople is a route a lot of people go down, but don’t always realise the challenges until the work is due to begin. When you’ve experienced extensive damage to your property, the likelihood is that in order to get it repaired, you’ll need to call upon people across multiple trades. This is tricky for a number of reasons:

1. Without a thorough damage assessment, it’s difficult even to know who to contact and which trades you’ll need to bring in

2. Even with a full picture of the damage, finding tradespeople willing to quote for insurance repair work is challenging, as not all builders are willing to quote for insurance repair projects

3. Once you’re at the point where your quote has been approved by your insurer, you’ll then need to juggle all of your contractors to get the job done, which means donning a project manager’s hat, negotiating timelines and schedules, checking in to make sure everything’s running on track, and navigating any hurdles that might crop up along the way

This is an awful lot of work to take on, especially if you have work and family commitments alongside it all.

That’s why a lot of people opt for a third scenario — getting a team of experts to handle it all for you (a.k.a. Action Insurance Repair).

When Disaster Strikes At Your Property, Don’t Go It Alone…

We’re here to take the stress out of your insurance claim and repairs. With over 16 years in business, we know what it takes to accurately assess property damage, build a successful claim, and see the repairs work completed to the highest possible standard.

When disaster strikes, we’re quick to respond and will attend your property within 48 hours of receiving your call. We can help with bringing on board a loss assessor, who will act on your behalf throughout.

With a full team of specialists across multiple trades, we can quote for and complete your repairs work, overseeing each stage of the process to make sure everything stays on track.