Insurance Update

Regular readers will know that two and a half weeks ago, my kitchen ceiling collapsed. A few people have asked me how things are going. Here’s an update. It’s not a happy story.

I’ve been talking to Aviva to work out what needs to be done. I took out my buildings insurance through my bank, First Direct, but apparently they farm all of their insurance out to Aviva. On the day that it happened I made an appointment for Aviva’s surveyor to come round and look at the damage. It happened on Wednesday and I was given an appointment on the following Tuesday. Six days seemed a long time to wait, but there didn’t seem to be any alternative.

So I took Tuesday off work and waited for the surveyor. Twenty minutes before the end of the eight to one window that I had been given he called me to cancel the appointment. His car had broken down. Of course, I can’t blame him for that, but a good company is one that can deal with unexpected problems like this. He told me that someone would call me and make alternative arrangements.

I stayed at home for the afternoon, but no-one called me.

Two days later (Thursday 25th) I tried to call them to find out what was going on. But I called after 5pm which is apparently when all their customer support people got home. Frustrated I did what anyone would do and tweeted my anger.

Those tweets were noticed by someone in Aviva’s social media group who replied, sending me his email and asking me to send him full details. Which I did.

The following day I got an apologetic-sounding phone call from an Aviva customer support agent.  He claimed that the original surveyor hadn’t told anyone that the appointment had been cancelled and offered to set up another appointment. Having already taken three days off work for this (two to deal with the emergency and one to wait for the Aviva surveyor) I was loathe to take more time off (I’m freelance and every day off is a day I don’t get paid for).

My wife was out of the country so we set a provisional date for this coming week, after she gets back. But I said that what I’d really like was for them to find someone who could see come round out of normal office hours. The agent said that he would see what they could do and that someone would call me back. I bet you can guess what is coming.

And you’d be right, of course. Another week has passed and no-one bothered to call me back. So it looks like my wife will be dealing with this in a few days time. At one point I optimistically hoped that the work might all be done by the time she got back. How naive was I?

So it’s two and a half weeks since the ceiling collapsed. I still have  huge hole in my kitchen ceiling and a shower that I can’t use for fear of it leaking again. And I have no idea when anything will move forward. Right now I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing was fixed by the end of summer.

The worst thing is the impression I get from Aviva that no-one there has the slightest interest in helping to fix this problem. I’ve never had to call on them before and, based on this experience, I hope I never have to again. I really couldn’t recommend them at all.