Transcript for Flood Insurance

Watchdog, 14/05/14

Presenter: Fiona Phillips

Fiona (VOICE OVER)
This winter was the wettest the UK has seen for over a hundred years.
Storms rolled in from the Atlantic creating wet and wild scenes that left parts of the country, from Devon to Dumfries, submerged for weeks.
Fiona (TO CAMERA)
This is Staines-upon-Thames, although in February, this was more like Staines-Below-Thames. Where I’m standing was two meters underwater.
Wherever you were though, if your home was flooded, there would have been just two things on your mind. How much damage has been done? And what will your insurance company do to help put things right?
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
Just ask Royal And Sun Alliance customers, Paula and Andrew Powell, from Somerset. In February, the couple woke to find the entire ground floor of their house submerged.
PAULA POWELL:Seeing this muddy flood water coming into our home was just heart breaking. Something completely out of your control and just seeing your home just deteriorate before your eyes. We called Sun Alliance to tell them we had water in the house, they told us someone would be in touch with us. They gave us a claim reference and after that we just carried on moving belongings upstairs.
Fiona (TO CAMERA)
According to their own insurers, RSA, customers with an obviously urgent claim like this should be called back within four hours to begin the process.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
Yet it took them four days to get back in touch to start processing the claim.The company apologised.But it wasn’t to be the last time they would leave the Powells in the lurch.
Once the water retreats, insurance companies are supposed to send out a loss adjustor within 24 hours. These are the people insurers appoint to assess damage and arrange repairs.
But once again, that’s not what happened.
PAULA POWELL:We called Royal Sun Alliance as soon as the flood water was gone from the house, expecting a visit, and it still took a week and a half for someone to come out and look at the house and the damage.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
Whether it’s a time of national crisis or not, these time delays are simply unacceptable, says former Chief Executive of the National Flood Forum, Mary Dhonau.
Mary Dhonau:RSA really should have been there a lot quicker. First of all, to help them in their misery and secondly because they can get the de-humidifiers and fans and stripping out and the drying process underway, it will actually cut down the amount of time that the home owners have to be out of the property.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
When the loss adjustor did eventually visit the property, he said he’d arrange for driers to be brought to their home.
But, guess what? That proved too difficult for RSA too.
Fiona (TO CAMERA)
Because nearly a fortnight after the loss adjuster’s eventual visit, the driers he promised still hadn’t arrived.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
And keeping a house wet for that long can seriously increase the time it takes to dry it.
As well as causing items within to grow mould, even if they weren’t touched by the flood water.
PAULA POWELL:Our clothes, our belongings, were all suffering because the house was so wet. So although the water had gone, the walls were growing mould, the house was smelling absolutely atrocious.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
The Powells decided enough was enough and took matters into their own hands. They hired their own loss adjustor and tasked him to take over repairs. Within a week, two dehumidifiers and three fans were working around the clock inside their home.
They are still living in temporary accommodation – but at least now, progress is being made.
Mary Dhonau:The Powells in good faith have paid, regularly paid their insurance, flood insurance, expecting at the end of the day, should they need to claim, that they will get a good service. And the fact that they’ve been treated so shoddily and felt forced to get a private loss assessor in, for me, is just not good practice at all.
Fiona (TO CAMERA)
Meanwhile, near here in Staines, another couple were also suffering at the hands of their insurers.
This time, the company was Churchill.
And this time, there was more at stake than just a damaged property.
SIMON CLARKE:The flood happened on the 10th of Feb which was just over three months before we were due to have our wedding. We’d literally just got the house just how we wanted so to have something like this happen was really devastating.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
As soon as the flood waters hit, Simon and Erin called Churchill. But their call fell on deaf ears.
SIMON CLARKE:It wasn’t till the third day of trying that I managed to get through to someone.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
Which, according to our expert, is once again, totally unacceptable.
Mary Dhonau:The Association of British Insurers have made a commitment to say that most big insurance companies run a 24 hour a day flood insurance claim hot line in times of big flood, like this one. So really I am at a loss to understand why Churchill didn’t answer the phone calls properly.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
Once Simon did get through, a loss adjustor visited the property and started planning the work needed.
So Simon and Erin, now living with her parents, felt reassured that the repairs would be completed well before their big day.
Fiona (TO CAMERA)
But Simon was wrong to feel so confident, because Churchill were about to make another blunder.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
For five weeks, Simon heard nothing from Churchill. And when they did eventually get in touch, it wasn’t to start repairs. It was to ask for a copy of the building survey he had done when he bought the house.
Because of a query over a pre-existing subsidence claim, Churchill had decided to put the flood repairs on hold without telling him.
Mary Dhonau:Something simple like that they could have done within the first few days, they could have rang Simon, asked for the survey and got the claim moving again.
Fiona (VOICE OVER)
Churchill admitted they’d made a mistake and finally began repairs last month.
Fiona (TO CAMERA)
But with less than two months to go until their wedding, would there be enough time left to get the house ready for them to live in when they returned from honeymoon?
In short, no.
SIMON CLARKE:Today’s the day before my wedding day and there’s just no way I can move back into this.
If Churchill had asked for this information at the start of the process, instead of waiting five weeks, we could be moved back in here by now and I could have walked my bride over the threshold after our wedding day, but that’s just not going to happen anymore.