This is a call for advice, because insurance companies are dumb. It’s a small-scale issue in the grand scheme of things (cough Christchurch cough), but it’s irritating. So:
We had a fence & gate in our back yard. Then the big storm happened. Our gate fell down. Tower Insurance came to the party. They replaced our ruined shed, replaced our ruined carport roof, and put a new gate in the fence. The fence was finished September 13. We were happy customers.
On October 25 there was another storm in Wellington. It was just an ordinary sort of storm, I thought. The new gate did not survive.
We told the insurer, hey, that gate didn’t withstand its very first Wellington storm. Wellington gets high winds and storms all the time. Ergo: it was not up to standard. Fix the gate properly this time. They replied, nope. That was a new event. You have to make a new claim.
We said: uh no way. So they sent an assessor around, who advised them: “the damage is not from bad workmanship but from another event.”
So. What’s our next move?
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown: we let them get away with it because what were we expecting anyway.
Make it right or we’re outta here: we put a finger in their chest and stare them down and say their guy is wrong and if they don’t fix our little gate situation then we change insurance providers, capeesh?
Counterstrike: I don’t know maybe there is some customer response channel that they are not telling us about where we can say, they got this wrong, and something might come of it. Also I want a pony.
Like, we’re not stupid, are we? Would any builder say that a brand-new fence that is fit for purpose would split apart like that one did in its very first, very average, storm? Was it a very average storm, or am I misremembering its severity?
And how broken is a system where the insurer chooses the builders to do the work, pressures them into delivering work fast and as cheap as possible, then has the absolute power to decide whether their work was good or not?
Insurance is dumb.