If your home in South London has been damaged by a leak, fire or storm, your insurer will often push you towards their own approved contractor. Many homeowners do not realise they normally have the right to use a builder they trust instead. Here is how that works in practice, and where the catches are.
Most UK buildings insurance policies let you appoint your own contractor for reinstatement work. The insurer's job is to put your property back to the condition it was in before the damage, and the policy usually says they will pay the reasonable cost of doing that. It rarely says the work must be done by their network.
That said, read your policy wording. A small number of policies, and some claims handled under delegated authority by a managing agent, state that using the insurer's contractor is a condition of the claim being settled in full. If the wording is unclear, ask the insurer to point to the exact clause before you agree to anything.
Insurer networks work to fixed national rates and tight schedules, and the contractor is answerable to the insurer, not to you. Around Balham, Tooting and Clapham most of the housing stock is Victorian or Edwardian terracing, with lath and plaster ceilings, original cornicing and lime plaster that a rate-driven contractor may simply overboard or skim rather than repair properly.
A local firm that does insurance reinstatement day in, day out can match period details, deal with party wall neighbours you actually share a wall with, and is around afterwards if anything needs snagging. You also keep control of timing, which matters if you are living in the property while, say, an escape of water claim dries out over several weeks.
Once the claim is accepted, tell the insurer or loss adjuster early that you intend to use your own builder. They will usually ask for an itemised, like-for-like quotation covering the same scope of damage they have agreed, broken down into strip out, drying, materials and reinstatement rather than one lump sum.
The insurer then either pays your builder directly or gives you a cash settlement based on the agreed scope. Expect some negotiation: adjusters commonly benchmark quotes against their network rates, so a well itemised quote referencing the agreed schedule of works settles far faster than a single figure on one page.
If you take a cash settlement and use your own builder, responsibility for the quality of the work shifts to you and your contractor rather than the insurer, so choose a firm with genuine insurance reinstatement experience, proper public liability cover and references you can check. If the insurer's contractor does the work, the insurer typically guarantees it, which is a real benefit worth weighing.
There can also be a gap between what the insurer offers and what a quality repair genuinely costs, particularly on period properties. You are entitled to challenge an offer that would not restore the property to its previous condition, and you can escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service free of charge if you cannot reach agreement. In our experience most disputes come down to scope rather than rates, which is another reason to get the schedule of works nailed down first.
They cannot usually refuse the claim itself, but they only have to pay the reasonable cost of reinstatement, which they may benchmark against their own contractor rates. If your quote is higher, you may need to justify the difference or cover the gap yourself.
Not necessarily. Emergency works such as leak detection, making safe and drying can start straight away with the insurer's knowledge, and a clearly itemised quote against an agreed scope often settles faster than waiting for a network contractor's start date.
Your contractor does, rather than the insurer, so ask about their workmanship guarantee in writing before you commit. A reputable local firm should be happy to put a guarantee period and their insurance details in front of you.
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