After a fire, the money question comes fast: your kitchen is gutted, the smoke has travelled through the whole house, and someone needs to pay to put it right. In most cases your buildings insurer funds the reinstatement work, but the way that money reaches the people doing the repairs varies more than homeowners expect. Here is how it usually works in practice on South London homes, and where the costs can land on you.
If you own the property and hold a buildings policy, the insurer pays to reinstate the fabric of the house to the condition it was in before the fire. That covers structural repairs, replastering, rewiring where cables have been heat damaged, joinery, flooring, and redecoration to the affected areas. Smoke damage counts too, which matters because in a terraced Balham or Tooting house smoke tends to track well beyond the room where the fire started.
Contents, meaning furniture, clothing, appliances and personal items, sit under a separate contents policy. Plenty of people discover after a fire that they had buildings cover through their mortgage lender but never took out contents cover, and that gap is not something a builder or a loss adjuster can fix afterwards.
There are two common routes. On the insurer supply chain route, your insurer instructs a national contractor, controls the schedule of works, and pays them directly. You will normally only be asked for your excess. On the second route, you appoint your own contractor, they price the job, the loss adjuster agrees the figure, and the insurer settles either directly with the contractor or to you in stages.
You are entitled to use a builder of your choosing on most policies. What you cannot do is spend the money and then present the bill. The scope and price need to be agreed with the loss adjuster before work starts, or you risk the insurer only paying what their own estimate said the job was worth.
The excess is the guaranteed cost to you. On a standard UK home policy that is usually between 100 and 500 pounds, though some policies carry higher excesses on escape of water or subsidence which do not apply to fire. It is deducted from the settlement, not billed separately.
Betterment is the other one to watch. Insurance restores like for like, so if your 15 year old kitchen is destroyed and you want a better one, the insurer funds the equivalent replacement and you pay the difference. The same applies if you decide to move a wall or upgrade to underfloor heating while the floor is up. In an older Victorian conversion you may also face upgrade costs where current Building Regulations require something the original build did not have, such as fire doors, mains linked smoke alarms or compliant electrics. Some policies include a small amount for regulatory upgrades, often around 5 to 10 percent of the claim, but not always.
Tenants do not insure the building. Your landlord's buildings insurer pays for the structural repairs, and your own contents policy covers your possessions. If the property becomes uninhabitable, check whether your tenancy or contents policy provides alternative accommodation, as it is not automatic.
If the fire spread from a neighbouring property, your own insurer still handles your claim. They will then pursue the other party's insurer themselves through subrogation. You should not wait for that to resolve before starting your repairs, because it can take many months. In a converted flat, the freeholder's block policy normally covers the structure and communal areas, which means the claim runs through the managing agent rather than you.
Photograph everything before anything is cleared, including smoke staining on ceilings and walls in rooms away from the fire. Keep the fire and rescue service incident number. Get the property made safe and watertight quickly, because further water damage from an open roof after the fire is often disputed if you delayed.
Ask the loss adjuster to confirm in writing what has been agreed in the scope of works. If your contractor later finds hidden damage behind plaster, which is common with heat travelling through floor voids, that becomes a variation and needs agreeing before it is carried out rather than after.
Usually no. Most policies allow you to appoint your own contractor, provided the scope and price are agreed with the loss adjuster before work begins.
Your buildings insurer normally covers reasonable alternative accommodation if the property is uninhabitable, subject to a limit in your policy. Keep receipts and get the cost agreed in advance rather than assuming.
A single damaged room might take four to eight weeks once agreed, while a whole house with structural and smoke damage often runs six months or more. Drying out and the loss adjuster's approval stages are usually what set the timeline, not the building work itself.
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