Review of Homeserve Plumbing and Drainage Emergency Policy

I took out a policy with Homserve about six years ago, simply because I thought they were part of Anglican Water. In fact they are a completely separate company and their name is misleading. They contract the jobs out to different companies.

The first claim I made was when we had a blocked toilet. The company that came out put a camera down the drain and decided our drains had collapsed - which would not be covered under the Homeserve / Anglican Water Direct policy we had, but would be covered under our home insurance policy! See where I am going with this!!!

In fact after they dug up our back yard and the toilet still blocked up it was discovered then that there was a toilet freshener stuck in the toilet! I watched them like a hawk to see exactly where the pipes had collapsed. They hadn't. They dug up our back yard because they saw an opportunity for a quick buck and it didn't cost the company that delivers unsuspecting idiots like me to them anything at all! A claim was made on our house insurance that wasn't required and I had to pay the excess of £150! Although I reported this company, they still continue to use them!

The second time I called them it was due to an outside tap that had started leaking badly. Apparently, as it is not an emergency, it was not covered and the plumber they sent charged me £70 to put a new washer on! He didn't as he didn't have the right size and I only noticed after that he had put that white tape around the tap which held it for a few days so as I wouldn't notice!

After that, in the six years I've had four blocked drains - a fiftenn minute job in three of those cases and about 45 minutes in another. None of these blockagese had anything to do with collapsed drains and were cleared but I refused to allow the initial company anywhere near my house. As soon as you make a claim with these people they try their best to find a way not to honour their agreement. I was told because I did not pay for a video survey they were not going to come out an unblock a drain that had absolutely nothing to do with the blockage. In fact I did have a video done and the drains were fine.

Last week I reported a blocked drain which thay came out and unblocked but promptly phoned to tell me that the engineer had spotted possible roots in another drain (nothing to do with the drain he unblocked which took less than five minutes!) and that unless we had our drains relined they would no longer cover us. At no point was there a blockage caused by roots in our drainage system!

So what I want to say to any poor unsuspecting customer is not to bother with them as it is more stressful to deal with them in the long run and some of the companies they use in the Buckingham/Northamptionshire area are unscrupulous and not very nice to deal with. I worked it out that I paid them more than what it would have cost to have somebody come out when a drain blocks. They always find a way to get you.