Home insurance not paying out, after successfully approved claim

HI helpful people.

I made a claim against my building insurance after a small fire in my apartment which resulted in damage to my apartment.

An auditor came out and inspected the damage and costs. My claim was approved. After months of chasing it, I was informed it was reinsured? with other companies. I recieved only 1 out of 3 cheques. The other 2 supposedily come from other companies who are going into liquidation.

Can anyone advise me on my rights here? Its been over 1.5years since it started. Is my policy not supposed to garunteed to pay out from whoever MY policy is with and not who they sell the business on to?

My emails and calls are now going unanswered for months.

Thank you for your help.

your email does not make sence in respect to the number of cheques and companies involved.

How many insurance policies were involved in the claim (contents polic, buildings policy etc)
Did you make a claim against one company or a number of companies
Who insurers the building?

sorry for being unclear.

I am insured with Hibernian for buildings insurance (by my management company).

I made one claim against company and they approved it. They sent out 1 cheque which partially covered the costs. Another two are suppose to be sent out. They seem to split the insurance policy up and sell it on to other insurance companies. These other companies are going into liquidation and so have no sent the cheques to hibernian to send on to me.

If there is a policy with aviva (formally hibernian) then they must deal with the claim. This is a contract and subject to the terms of the contract. If they decide to sell on the risk thats there issue but you have no relationship to that issue as your contract is with aviva and aviva only.

If they sent out 1 cheque this is usually an interim payment subject to retention. You usually have to go back with receipts and invoices in order to get the balance.

You could go to the obmudsman or arbitration to get resolution depending on your contract conditions.

This scenario seems v strange. Aviva are a large multinational insurer. The only time they would reinsure their risks is at a very high level (for example they might cover €500m storm cover themselves and anything over that insure with Munich Re).

They don't break cover at your level into different insurers. I would imagine what was more likely is that the management company insured the building with them, and they paid out this section. Your contents are probably insured elsewhere. It does all seem v messy though, have you considered employing an independent loss adjustor?

Another scenario could be that your builder hasn't returned VAT receipts for the job and hasn't received the retention amount. Maybe the builder has gone into liquidation?


www.powerinsurances.ie

Aviva sent out a loss adjuster(i think thats what he called himself) a year and half ago. He examined the damage and agreed my reciept for repairs was adequate and i have aviva in writing that they approved the claim.

Its definitely not my MC going to multiple insurers. The guy at Aviva informed me of the multiple reinsurers. They payed me the part that they themselves insured, and went about chasing up the checks from the others. One check did arrive from another to aviva guy, but he had to send it back to get it endorsed or stamped or something. Then the two remaining companies went into liquidation.

I think i shall go to the ombudsman. I have it in writing of the approval of the claim. A string of communication from to them with no responses. 1.5 years of waiting for a couple of hundred is ridiculous. I believe my case should be straight forward. If anyone has any suggestions or opinions, please let me know.

This appears to be a case where there are a number of co-insurers with Aviva being the lead office. In such cases, where there is a substantial risk, ie, a large factory, a large apartment block or large organisation ( ie, the GAA), a number of insurers share the risk between them. The insurer who carries the largest porportion of the risk is called the lead insurer and they are the company who instruct the loss adjuster and make decisions on the claim. When the loss is agreed, the leading insurers then approve the figures and each of the co-insurers are copied with details of the overall loss and what porportion they have to pay. Cheques are then issues separately from each of the insurers.

My suggestion to the OP is to raise this matter with the management company and insist that they raise this issue with the brokers who arranged this cover initially. The broker will then contact the lead office and hopefully sort it out.

To be honest, the whole situation does sound a little unusual as there are normally procedures in place to stop this kind of thing happening. Is the OP certain that the management agents are not holding the cheques against any fees they believe are outstanding? This commonly happens with apartment blocks claims. Check with your management company, the management agents and the brokers. If you do not get the matter resolved, make a complaint to the ombudsman who will raise the issue with the lead office.

If you are insured with Aviva, and they have approved the claim then it is up to them to sort the cheques. COntract is with them. Reinsurance, as indicated, is there to spread risks and protect the exposure of the main insurer. It's not your issue, you didn't choose to go down that path. Write a formal letter to them, stating that as they have approved the claim you are expecting prompt payment to settle the claim in full.

Disclosure - I am an engineer working for an insurance company (not the mentioned), but have no input to the underwriting of clients.

If they split the risk it isn't an re-insurance issue. The whole post makes it sound a split risk with Aviva as the lead insurer and other insurers filling the line. However I couldnt see this happening with the apartment. I think we are missing something here and the OP would really need to more exact in their explanation of what Aviva have said.

peteb said:

If they split the risk it isn't an re-insurance issue. The whole post makes it sound a split risk with Aviva as the lead insurer and other insurers filling the line. However I couldnt see this happening with the apartment. I think we are missing something here and the OP would really need to more exact in their explanation of what Aviva have said.

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Surely if Aviva were splitting the policy with other co-insureds, this would be declared somewhere in the policy wording?

Well there would be different policy wordings subject to each underwriters line on the policy.

I thought i'd update this issue. I didnt forget, theres just be soo little progress on the whole thing.

The policy is seems was split between three insurers. I deal with a guy at Marsh who seem to broker and deal with the policy.

The 2nd and third remaining cheques were written up and sent to marsh. However these checks are useless to me as they are written with the name of the holdings company on them.

Marsh guy has been 'trying' to get teh cheques stamped by someone who is from that holdings company however they have gone into recievership.

Now its a problem of finding out who is responsible for these properties. The 2 contacts Marsh was given from two different companies involved with the recievership, both claim not to be responsible for my block of apartments. So it seems nobody knows who is responsible for these cheques to be endorsed.

Its a gaint mess. Its been 2.5 years now and im STILL fighting to get 400euros worth of insurance still...

Can anyone tell me anyone i can lodge a complaint with, or a independant person or someone who could sort this mess out? I'd even give them the 400 euro just to make sure it gets sorted and the insurers dont get away with not paying out.

Thanks.

What holdings companies are you talking about? You've said that policy is co-insured with various insurers so is that what you are talking about?

The management company is responsible for the buildings. So there is no find out who is responsible, its them. And when there is a cheque issued it will be payable to the management company.

Marsh are the broker and they are paid to act on behalf of the management company. so they are obliged to go sort it and if not then their professional indemnity policy should be getting hit with a claim as they placed the cover.

Seem's to be a lot of confusion here between lead insurers, co-insurers and reinsurers.

thethinker the best thing you can do now is stop talking and get writing...Write a complaint letter to Marsh outlining your case to date, explain that you have no idea of what is going on and that you want claims settlement within 10 days as per claims regulation (this is because Aviva has admitted the claim).

Let them know that this is a formal letter of complaint and that you want a copy of their complaints charter. Explain that if this issue is not resolved within their complaints proceedure time limits that you intend to esculate your complaint to the FSO [broken link removed]

Top tip: Always register your letter when you are dealing with a complaint as this avoids the typical response of "we did not receive your letter"