Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: stevegunn on April 23, 2008, 04:58:00 pm
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Got a call from long standing customer this morning husband had burst a vein in his leg blood everywhere,could I take a look.
In between going to next job dropped in,bit of a state but explained maybe insurance claim given that it had gone through to the underlay and onto the floorboard.Suggested she ring insurance company who told her they would send Rainbow out as that's who they deal with next week,now given I was already there the customer explained her regular cleaner was already here could he do it?
No once the blood is dry its easier to get out was their reply.
Where do these insurance companies get their information from?
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can't the customers chose who ever they want to complete any work?
plus would'nt she be speaking to some spotty kid in a call centre.
mike
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Steve,
Just had the same yesterday, got a call from a regular customer (B&B), a Red-ring hot water heater had burst in the attic room and ran for at least 4 hours before being noticed, the carpet (BW) on the stairs and hallway was soaked, ceilings had high readings and the paper was already starting to come off the walls.
We were there within 2 hours of getting the phone call, their local insurance agent was there as well. We gave him a detailed assessment of the flood and the work required, both immediate and also the drying and restoration work that needed to be done.
The owner phoned his insurance company (Norwich Union) to get the go ahead, and they said they would send Rainbow out to do the job as they were their approved restorers >:(
The lad working for me is an ex Rainbow Supervisor/Technician and even he said "Rainbow will milk this for all it's worth, and will charge between £15K - £20K, the whole place will be in a mess for at least 2 months".
We are now in the position with our staff and sub-contractors that we could have probably got the whole job done for under £10K and had them back up and running within 3 weeks.
Spoke to the owner today, he was really apologetic and told me to invoice him for turning up, Rainbow had turned up and put some dehumidifiers in, yet as yet had done nothing with the sodden carpet and underlay or the ceiling. ???
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And yet they won't turn to an owner operator who takes pride in his her work, charges less, shows greater empathy to a distraught customer, gets their quicker, gets the job done quicker and all because (on paper) you don't have the national infrastructure they believe they need.
Oops, gap in Market???????????????? Possibly but in reality the insurers coud'nt give a toss. Know of a classic example today where someone (an owner operator) was told no for the above reason (inffrastructure) and the reality is this claims person could'nt have got it the wrong way round any more if they had tried.
shame
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By law , the policyholder has a choice as to who carries out work on thier property as part of an insurance claim , so long as the contractor is competant, and charges fairly.
I suggest returning to the customer , explaining this, andmaybe offering to settle thier excess for them as a matter of goodwill , it does not matter that Rainbow have already commenced works, they can be kicked off.
The reason insurance companies use larger organisations , rather than independents, is because , the have set service standards ,which the head offices can achieve , and the flow of management information is more reliable and standardized. The quality of the work carried out , is just one factor that insurance companies use in thier choice of how to settle claims.
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Jason is that true as I thought they had to use company policy.If your right then there is a big opportunity.
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Asolutely true , the same goes with all insurance claims , especially motor, they try and push you to big crash repair centres, who give big retrospective discounts to insurance companies , few people know that they have a choice.
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Very interesting.
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went to a job on new years day once, cos Chem-dry was shut. Went in, suck up, put driers in and the following day got kicked off job by insurance company.
the client HAS TO use their insurance companies contractors or the client can not claim for work involved. The insurance did pay me for my work I did on new years day, which I had now doubled cos I was ped off, so I made twice as much money in a short time.
Not fair on client or me. considering Chem dry was shut, i don't think ins co had much to brag about
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Very true what Jason has stated, and I am talking first hand.
I had chem-dry and John Youngs insurance services covering a water tank leak in my own property.
I was so disgusted with the service, and the bodged attempts at making good, I ended up getting my own building firm in to do the works, and the carpets and general cleaning where completed by my own company ;D
Insurers asked for quotes, and cheques were paid to me to then pay contractors as and when necessary. Incidentally, my insurer is Norwich Union.
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Karl...it is as Jason says...both he and John have worked in this area extensively over the last 15 years or so. After a particularly bad storm a few years back we had quite a bit of damage to our master bedroom, bringing down part of the ceiling and damaging fitted wardrobes etc. When we notified our insurer they insisted on sending out their contractor. We let them do this (without informing them that we were also in the trade) - it was not a particularly good experience with their 'expert' contractor talking a whole load of waffle as well as giving some extremely disturbing news...i.e. informing us that we were not covered as we had a 'flat' roof - which was, in fact, totally incorrect. Now, if we had been an elderly couple, or someone as vulnerable, we would have been extremely upset by what he told us. Instead, he was sent out with a flea in his ear and we were straight onto the phone to our brokers and to the insurance company. We informed the insurance company that we would be appointing our own contractors as their expert did not meet the standards we expected from such an individual or company. They immediately gave us the go ahead to get quotes, etc and the work was done within weeks (from replacing the roofing, ceiling, wardrobes, decorating etc). The insurance company will try and frighten the Policyholder into using their designated contractors but legally they have no right to. If you do choose to use your own contractors, and there are problems, it would be down to you, as the policyholder, to sort them out directly with the contractor as the Insurance Company will not want to know...that is the only downside. The insurance company concerned was Norwich Union.
Lynn
(Mrs K)
P.S. The contractor, whether it be ChemDry, Rainbow or one appointed by yourself, is working for you not the insurance company. That is why, at the start of every job, the contractor has to get a mandate signed giving the insurance company your permission to pay their invoice.
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I have sent this post to watchdog. Sounds like its right there street.
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All policies state that it is the property owner's responsibility to minimise damage under a claim. Therefore if you get on site (especially ages before the approved contractor) then you have a very strong hand, for as has been stated earlier, it is the policy holder who decides who works for them and they are obviously trying to minimise the claim by calling you in the first place.
Sometimes I have then had to speak to the insurance company and as I know I will be cheaper than the approved contractor I have not as yet experienced a situation where the insurance company has tried to kick me off the job.
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I have sent this post to watchdog. Sounds like its right there street.
Pete have they started doing fire and flood too. :D
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My Missus used to work for Norwich Union she was (and still is ;)) a boss and she would advise friends to do their own management of repairs as alot of larger companies just think the work is easy money.
Shaun
PS John Kelly thanks for my sprayer
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Just got back from a meal at the local, thought I'd better treat Sue as she's been on her hands and knees all day ...............................................................................................scrubbing out a church. ;)
John K rang me whilst we were out and went through the above on the phone.
The whole issue of who is allowed to do the work is certainly a jack in the box waiting to explode and I'm not sure what the answer is, I understand the insurers not wanting to give it to anyone without the right credentials, but I also know the frustration when you lose out just because you are not on their list.
I'm sure there are many individual businesses out there that could take on local work and do it better than the franchaises, however, the problem is the insurance companies want national coverage. They want to make one call and know that with that one call the ball will be set in motion, that within hours they will have a detailed assessment of the damage, an estimate of the work required and a breakdown of costs, all on standard formatted proformas that they are used to.
Unless we, as individuals, join as a recognisable organisation, then we will always be just taking the scraps from the main table.
We did an insurance job recently which I have already posted on here, it was a reasonably small job that we were involved with at the start and the insurers asked us to progress through to the end.
It amounted to a good little earner for us, the client was delighted with the finished job and the timescale, the insurance have all their reports so they are happy and I'm sure our prices were a lot keener than they are used to. They also have our details which will hopefully go on to some useful database ........... and I've been paid. Why can't they all be like this ???
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Hold that thought Ian, plans are afoot
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Having visited Chem-Dry's headquarters in Beverley I was taken aback by what they have there. A full office block with floor after floor full of claims handlers. As I have said before Insurance companies aren't in business to fix your house or car. That may sound daft but they are actually investment companies. Your premium is there investment money. They are also somewhat like bookmakers where they have to guess the odds on you making a claim so they can set their premium rates.
This is why they want the repair side of the business taken away from them as cost effectively as possible. They get a claim and it is passed straight away to either afranchise restoration company or a loss adjusting company. They hope they only time they get involved after that is to pay the bill.
They monitor the performance of these companies with reports on KPI'S. Key point indicators. I.E what time was the policyholder contacted, what time did they arrive, how long did it take to dry etc etc. Any organisation hoping to gain any substantial amount of work needs to have resources in place to gather this info or they won't stand a chance. There are a lot of small to medium sized companies carrying out isurance work but even these are finding it hard to break into the big contracts where the real money is.
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Organizations like National flood School , and more recentley Alttec Academey run courses. on restoration.
Who goes on these courses, because if you cannot break into the market it is a waist of money. But if you could it would be worth it for The Young Lions amoung you.
It would be good if there was some official document regarding you can choose your own contractor because in the pass I have lost small jobs because i advised customer to contact insurance company where as if I thought the insurance company would pay me I would have gone ahead.
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Ian, even though the the bulk of the work is taken by franchise companies, there is still a huge amount of work for independent contractors. The flood school has their own network, Disastercare, which I and a number of other contributors to this board carry out work for. Also the commercial sector provides quite a bit of work as sometimes their policy excesses run into thousands of pounds. You can also contact local councils, loss adjusters, utility companies and last but not least plumbers and builders are always flooding peoples houses especially the bigger companies who employ a lot of staff.
It is a different ball game from carpet cleaning and you do have to be pretty flexible, however the rewards can be quite high.
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hi there
weve done work for insurance claims, using several different routes.
one being tagging on to the back of the main contractor for loss adjusters, by doing that we managed to get chemdry off site during last summers floods, but they do fight back.
another we won, by giving the client a great level of service, we carried out a survey of the property whih completely reported the opposite of what chemdry said, we won the job and proved that we were right.
we have recently been accepted as main contractor to what seems to be a large player in the market place, there may be opportunities in the future, as i do have some meetings planned with thes guys, as we seem to be ccovering the whole of the east midlands, east anglia and london, so fingers crossed.
one tip to people who want to get into this in a bigger way,build relationships with loss adjusters, at ground level, deliver a quality service anf they will use you again,
another tip make sure that you get satisfaction notes signed by clients, and if working direct fo a policyholder get the policyholder to sign a payment mandate authorising the direct payment of the invoice to you.
we do alright out of this type of work, and long may it continue.
regards
martin sales
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Lionheart,
What you have to realise is that Companies like Rainbow/Chem Dry have a guide to work to. Drying equipment is put in place and regular WME readings are taken to check on the drying process. The drying equipment must stay in place until the WME readings are at an acceptable level then a Certificate Of Dryness is issued. The potential of court action is too high for these companies to pull out the drying equipment to early plus its all about doing the job right FIRST TIME. The only reason i can see for the carpets/underlay not been removed is that the policy they were dealing with was Buildings only. This means they cannot remove carpets.
Richie.
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richie
As somebody who spent 6 months in the floods last year and who was disgusted at the quality of most of the "drying" completed by the frannies and others i can assure you getting it right "FIRST TIME" was a rarity,we are still getting approx 6-8 of their mess ups back every single week and to be honest im surprised it isnt more
The typical scenario was they would turn up with their hired out ebac bd150 units (very rarely any fans) and pull them 2 weeks later,now air temperature back then was quite low 8-10 c if memory serves me right well outside that units efficient operating range and of course we are next door with dessicants/heaters and plenty airflow where does the moisture trapped in that party wall/building wanna go,yup thats right towards our side increasing our drying times and reducing the profit whereas frannies are thought wonderful cause they "dried" their side out in 2 weeks..wrong ???Of course some of them got it right but mostly from what i witnessed it was calamity
These cases never go to court the frannies settle up because WME readings would never stand up in court and they know it,WME is not a british standard and i use it only as a guide(part of a bigger picture) during monitoring visits.I would only use it as a signoff figure in timber were it onvioulsly then becomes M/C
As for indipendants getting into insurance works as said elsewere its difficult but building relationships with local adjusters is the way to go,however drying/FDR works require lots of resources/knowledge but am glad to see indipendants around especially if they know what they are doing,there is enough work for everybody i fee
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richie
As somebody who spent 6 months in the floods last year and who was disgusted at the quality of most of the "drying" completed by the frannies and others i can assure you getting it right "FIRST TIME" was a rarity,we are still getting approx 6-8 of their mess ups back every single week and to be honest im surprised it isnt more
The typical scenario was they would turn up with their hired out ebac bd150 units (very rarely any fans) and pull them 2 weeks later,now air temperature back then was quite low 8-10 c if memory serves me right well outside that units efficient operating range and of course we are next door with dessicants/heaters and plenty airflow where does the moisture trapped in that party wall/building wanna go,yup thats right towards our side increasing our drying times and reducing the profit whereas frannies are thought wonderful cause they "dried" their side out in 2 weeks..wrong ???Of course some of them got it right but mostly from what i witnessed it was calamity
These cases never go to court the frannies settle up because WME readings would never stand up in court and they know it,WME is not a british standard and i use it only as a guide(part of a bigger picture) during monitoring visits.I would only use it as a signoff figure in timber were it obvioulsly then becomes M/C
As for indipendants getting into insurance works as said elsewere its difficult but building relationships with local adjusters is the way to go,however drying/FDR works require lots of resources/knowledge but am glad to see indipendants around especially if they know what they are doing,there is enough work for everybody i feel
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Hi Doug,
I know 4 Rainbows in my area & all are very professional & dealt with many of the floods that have taken place in the midalnds area. I have should have probably not spoken for all Rainbow & ChemDrys. I must say though, about 4 years ago i was asked to attend a flood at a hotel in stafford. I was onsite from 1.30 am and at 8 am someone from Munters came out along with someone from NFU insurance. I had at this point extracted with my truckmount 1000s of gallons of water from carpeted areas. Munters then started a area with a wet & dry vac. These areas were still SOAKING WET so i went over the areas myself. The insurance company said to me "thank you for what you have done but Munters will be taking over from here". The Hotel owner heard this conversation & told the Insurance guy that He wanted me to carry on with at least the extraction as Munters had a machine that was obviously not upto the job. So lets be honest.....its not just Rainbow & ChemDry that cant do the job right first time. Once i finished the extraction i left site telling the insured that if he wants me for anything else then just simply call me. I got a call a few days later asking to go to the hotel. The owner asked if i thought everything regarding drying was as it should be. Simple answer was NO. Not enough dehums installed, no air moving equipment (paddle fans or air movers or nor venting kits). Leads trailing from dehums without be taped down or covered over. Owner was not advised on prefered drying conditions. Walls had started to condensate. In my view all was wrong. Owner called the insurance company & demanded someone came out to install correct equipment & so on.
I am not going to go to war over any of this, The Rainbows that i know are good at there job and can say that they are good at there job yet i had seen sub standard work from Munters. As you can see......not all are perfect. The floods that have happened the past 12 months caused a VERY SHORT SUPPLY of drying equipment. Most companies were struggling to get hold of it.
Richie.
Richie.
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sorry richey wasnt meant to be a swipe at anybody thats why i never named anybody in particular and wont,i have worked with all companies mentioned in this thread and servicemaster and was just stating what was a continual occurrance.Off course munters get the odd job wrong too but on the whole i believe we get most of them right thats why i stay were i am.Unusual for both our companies to be on a NFU job thought they only ever used servicemaster or am i behind the times?
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Hi Doug,
My last post was just to confirm my findings as too was yours. NFU use a few different companies and with ALL insurance companies this can and does change from what appears to be a month to month basis. Its almost impossible to keep track of which insurance company uses which restoration company. Alot of it i think is down to the Loss Adjusters. I also know of 1 or 2 service master. Years of old, ServiceMaster had the insurance work pretty much to themselves. If only they had moved with the times im sure that this would be the same today. I believe now that the main players are Rainbow & ChemDry followed by Munters & ServiceMaster.
Richie.
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Steve Gunn
Were you quote at a big house in Morpeth today? Did you get the job? She had a few others up there to quote and I was unsuccessful >:(
John
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Steve Gunn
Were you quote at a big house in Morpeth today? Did you get the job? She had a few others up there to quote and I was unsuccessful >:(
John
No not me,was in Morpeth but not for that job.
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Doug, I have photos, moisture readings from 4 Munters jobs , I went to and dried properly with the correct amount of equipment last year,The mess made of these jobs was elementary.
I think the problem was that the big companies took on far too much work , and simply did not have the resources to cope.
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I take that as valuable feedback if thats the case.If you want to give me the post codes i will look into them and give some feedback.You can email me at
magnifiquesauzee@hotmail.co.uk
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Hi Jason,
I think that you have hit the nail on the head. It would certainly appear that SOME franchises just simply took on more than they could deal with.
Richie.