Review of Homeserve Plumbing and Drainage Cover

I woke during the night on Thurdsay 13 March to a sound of constant toilet flushing. When I went to see what was the cause I dicovered that the toilet was constantly filling a flushing.

I called Homeserve to ask for assistance under my emergency insurance policy and was told that they would get someone to phone me back, nobody had phoned by Friday teatime 14 March so I phoned them again. I was told a plumber would be with us before noon on Saturday. Nobody had been by teatime, so I phoned Homeserve again and was told a plumber would be with us within half an hour.

Eventually a plumber turned up but could not fix the toilet because it needed a part. He said he would look for the part and give us a ring on Monday to arrange to come back and fix it. On Monday we heard nothing, I phoned Homeserve again, they said they were trying to source the part and would phone me back. By this time it was Wednesday 19 March, the plumber had turned the water off to the toilet cistern and told us to pour water down the toilet to try and flush it. Still no word on the part and I was again told that they would call as the part should be in stock that day. I was going away with my husband and asked if they would call my mobile number to let me know.

Friday 21 March, I still had heard nothing, phoned Homeserve again only to be told that they could not get the part as it was now obsolete. I asked why they had not called before what was now Easter Holiday with my elderly mother coming to stay with us for Easter. They said they had tried to phone, I had not had any call. At first they said they had not been given my mobile number but then accepted it had been in the notes.

The end result is that they now say that the toilet is not longer an emergency because the plumber told us that we can flush the toilet by pouring water down the pan and because they cannot get the part it is up to me to have a permanent repair done. I argued the definitions but the person I spoke to had a different set of definitions and could not quote the same numbers/letters for the exclusion definitions that I have on my policy.

As far as I am concerned they took the money for the policy without any query as to whether we might have obsolete parts in our sanitary ware. We were not aware we had obsolete parts when we took the policy and the wording used to dodge repair is very ambiguouse. The clause they used said 'SA shall not be liable for: (n) costs incurred where you have been informed of the need to complete permanent repairs to avoid emergencies'. When I asked how I could do that before the emergency occurred my answer was that they were telling me now. I asked where it said in the exclusions that their liability stopped when a new part could not be sourced and they again reffered to the above clause.