Insurance Claim


Hi we have owned a holiday home in Deux Sevres for over 12 years and have never had a cause to make an insurance claim. We recently had rain damage and a pool of water on our bedroom floor. I have put in a claim with MMA and they have sent me an email to say they have opened a file and I sent them a description of the damage but I have heard nothing since and this has been about two weeks. Can anyone tell me what the next steps would be? We need to lift the tiles to see how much damange has been done to the wood but I do not want to start anything without authorisation from the Insurance. I will ring them again but wanted to know if anyone has had anything similar and the way to progress.



Many thanks



Debra

Hi Debra - good advice from Christian, we too had a claim and they sent an expert out. They paid for the interior works but refused to pay to fix the roof terrace. We had to have that fixed at our own cost. We had to get a devis from the contractor and get the insurer to agree to pay for the works to the interior. It was important that the contractor knew that the insurance were not likely to pay for the roof and that was at our expense....

Hi Christian

Thank you for your advice. I will heed it.

Kind regards

Debra

Debra,

I forgot. If the insurance sends an expert and you have a trusted roofer, ask him to attend the survey as the expert could "forget" things. I had my carpenter and painter with me and the expert was compelled to go into details.

Christian

Hi Debra,

Unfortunately I had an issue like that last year. The insurance should decide wether they will send an "expert" or not (depending on their assessment of the damage). You can take any prevention measure you want but I would recommend not to lift the tiles as this could spoil the insurance survey and the insurance would take any opportunity to transfer the responsibility to you.

In case they decide not to mandate an expert, they will request a quote from a certified constructor. There can be an issue as insurance rates are often far under the market price. Be aware.

My advice would be to ring them regularly and send them emails for this seems to be the only way to get an answer.

Christian