Warning

[jondeau]

[quote user="LesFlamands"][quote user="jondeau"]

Charles........I should stick to discussing something you actually know about in future.

[/quote]

Thanks for your advice, I am actually a qualified engineer and have been a registered, insured plumber in France for the past 17 years - how about you?

[/quote]

 

I am an apprentice trained gas fitter (North Eastern Gas) and recently retired after spending almost 45 years designing and installing heating/gas/and plumbing systems in the UK and several European countries.

[BIG MAC]

Can I raise you a time served plumber (Not gas fitter) who has worked for the UKs largest  loss adjuster for the past three years on his second tour of duty. First time around about ten years ago as a Surveyor and this time around as a contractor performance manager?

Where on earth would you find one of those fellas?

The discussion we are having is without the Policy schedule or indeed the full circumstances of loss. I cannot be certain even whether the claim is repudiated at this stage or on what grounds. Can we say Insurers were unaware of the cistern in the loft? supposing the cistern was right next to a Ballon also cited in the loft and the associated pipework to the ballon failed?

Too many imponderables but fun nonetheless..

UK Insurers will generally try to help I cannot comment on their French counterparts

Quidquid latine dictum sit altum sonatur

 

[Chancer]

[quote user="BIG MAC"]

UK Insurers will generally try to help I cannot comment on their French counterparts

Quidquid latine dictum sit altum sonatur

[/quote]

Exactement!

I read somewhere else on the forum of a lady being told by her electrician that her insurance would not cover fire damage caused by squirrels chewing through her electrical wiring.

As she is has properties in both countries I was unsure which electrician gave her the advice (but of course he must be correct [:P]) but I got the distinct impresion that the claim would be accepted if the squirrel was one colour, i.e. indeginous and not if an introduced species, which suggests a French insurer to me [:D]

My experience of UK insurers (I used to have a company installing burglar alarms) is that they are very conscious of their reputation and realise that bad publicity travels fast, in the event of a large claim causing real hardship, fire or flood, if everything appears above board they will pull out all the stops to help the householder very quickly. This generates goodwill and also minimises their costs.

On the other hand if the claim looks suspicious or the policyholder is a motor trader then things are scrutinised in detail and happen much slower.

The motor trader bit came from a TV documentary following a loss adjuaster during his work, he was about to interview a motor trader whose newly acquired speedboat had dissapeared, the loss adjustor very diplomatically said that as a sub-group they "suffered" a very much higher incedence of claims, and as a consequence paid higher premiums and were subject to scrutiny.

[Boiling a frog]

I have a similar tale of woe told to me with the advice never to use a particular assurance company because they were a bunch of con artists.

The tail, told to me second hand, was as follows.

An English woman with a holiday house in France asks a French roofer to repair her roof .

The roofer arrives while the woman is back in the UK. He has no access to the house but needs water to mix cement, so turns on the mains water supply to use the outside standpipe.

He completes the work that day but does not bother to turn off the water supply at the mains.

He does not realise that the woman had left all the taps open  in the house and the plug in the bath.

Result was that bath overflows and ruins the kitchen and all the electrics, plus a hefty bill for water consumption as water was running for 2 weeks.

She is insured by assurance XX company so she makes a claim. The assurance tell her that the French artisan is responsible so it should be him who is making the claim. He also happens to be insured with the same assurance coy XX .He however refused to accept liability and refuses to make a claim.

The English woman cannot see why the assurance cannot pay out her claim and take it up with the French artisan who is insured with the same company and uses the same agent.

The agent and insurance company are then tarred with being con men, and advice is given to anyone who will listen that they should not touch the agent or assurance with a bargepole.

Being France this story spreads like wildfire among the English speaking community.

 

I expressed my thoughts on the matter and kept my assurances with the agent.

Several months later I met the English woman in question( I had never met her before).

She was having her kitchen replaced and informed me that the assurance had eventually paid out on HER claim. She also told me that the French artisan was, unbeknown to her,working on the black and was not insured. Hence the delay by her French assurers while they investigated her claim but they had eventually paid out.

 

The point of this tale.

I just find it most unusual that a couple of days after pipes had burst the assurance coy had sent out an expert to examine the damage and announce that they were not paying out, seem remarkably quick for a French assurance coy  

 

[Chancer]

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]

I have a similar tale of woe told to me with the advice never to use a particular assurance company because they were a bunch of con artists.

The English woman cannot see why the assurance cannot pay out her claim and take it up with the French artisan who is insured with the same company and uses the same agent.

The agent and insurance company are then tarred with being con men, and advice is given to anyone who will listen that they should not touch the agent or assurance with a bargepole.

Being France this story spreads like wildfire among the English speaking community.

Several months later I met the English woman in question( I had never met her before).

She was having her kitchen replaced and informed me that the assurance had eventually paid out on HER claim. She also told me that the French artisan was, unbeknown to her,working on the black and was not insured. Hence the delay by her French assurers while they investigated her claim but they had eventually paid out.

The point of this tale.

I just find it most unusual that a couple of days after pipes had burst the assurance coy had sent out an expert to examine the damage and announce that they were not paying out, seem remarkably quick for a French assurance coy  

[/quote]

I have editted and highlighted your posting BAF but I think that you have hit the nail on the head.

From my own experiences I have found that often this misinformation comes about through misunderstanding which in turn comes from not speaking the language. 

[BIG MAC]

"The motor trader bit came from a TV documentary following a loss adjuaster during his work, he was about to interview a motor trader whose newly acquired speedboat had dissapeared, the loss adjustor very diplomatically said that as a sub-group they "suffered" a very much higher incedence of claims, and as a consequence paid higher premiums and were subject to scrutiny"

 

The assertion was that the investigators were from the Insurer...well the Insurer pays our bill....so maybe they were......