If you thought energy firm horror stories were frightening – wait until you hear about the insurers

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If you thought energy firm horror stories were frightening – wait until you hear about the insurers
Author: Anna Tims
Published: Dec, 09 2024 08:30

Scary tales of months of claims misery after earthquakes, storms, floods, leaks and fires. My occasional three-act suspense dramas on the antics of energy firms may have left you cold, but I’ve now adapted the thriller tales of insurance customers for the stage. These really will keep you awake at night.

 [Anna Tims]
Image Credit: the Guardian [Anna Tims]

Somerset, 2019 An earthquake is followed by a storm. Rain starts to flood SB’s conservatory. This is not just any old conservatory. It links the annexe, where her severely disabled adult son lives, with the bungalow where SB also cares for her disabled daughter and it is the hub of the home.

For a year, Tesco, SB’s home insurer, dispatches ineffectual contractors to fiddle with the damage. Then, when an assessor decides the roof needs to be replaced at a cost of £24,000, it decides that the building itself is to blame, and refuses to cover the cost. The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) sides with SB and orders Tesco to finish the job, pay compensation and make good damage caused by its own contractors.

By this stage, what with pandemic lockdowns, three years have passed. It takes Tesco another 17 months to restart the repairs to worsening damage, and the family is rehoused in three caravans. As work drags on, they are moved to a Travelodge and then to two cabins on a holiday camp. All this while, SB is coping with a son in a wheelchair who requires round-the-clock care, and a daughter with Down’s syndrome who can’t understand where her home has gone. That home, meanwhile, is still damp, damaged and filthy from years of stop-start building work. “I loved my home but now I end up crying when I go there,” she says.

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