Review of Homeserve Home Emergency Cover

When our NHBC 2 year warranty ran out 18 months ago, they recommended this policy with Homeserve.

The first time I came to use it was Saturday after discovering a flood in my Utility Room. I rang them and they called me back with a time for the plumber to call. It was between 8am and 1pm on the Sunday, more than 12 hours after reporting it. I explained that it was an emergency, water was still pouring into my house and I had turned the stop tap off as they had advised, and so now I had no water and children in the house. The response was 'well it IS a Saturday!'

When he eventually came on Sunday, as I had already moved the washing machine and kick-boards from the sink for him to gain access (yes I am superwoman!) he just crouched down and looked underneath and said the water was coming up through the concrete floor from outside and therefore he couldn't do anything as I wasn't covered for external pipes with them.

I said it sounded bad, he said 'oh yes, it IS bad!'. By this time I'm in a blind panic as I have been told that I will have to have all of the garden and path dug up as well as the concrete floor, and that he couldn't believe that I never had separate water pipe insurance. My property is less than 4 years old and I don't think its unreasonable to expect a water supply pipe to last longer than that.

I asked him a few more questions about my cover with Homeserve, to which he replied 'look, im not here to discuss your policy, I'm a plumber and I've already told you there is nothing I can do' he then left! Children in the house, water pouring through the floor and stop tap still turned off - he had been there less than 25 minutes. He actually tried to make his getaway whilst I was on the telephone trying to explain the situation to my partner who is in the armed forces overseas. The plumber told my friend 'Im off, it's nothing to do with me' but she managed to get him to wait and tell me that himself.

After a sleepless night and much stress trying to get this mess sorted out, I have today had a team of plumbers arrive ready to dig a trench and fix the problem - provided by my buildings Insurance, though nobody was sure if I was covered by this until they found what the problem was. Fortunately, before they started digging, they checked under the sink themselves and discovered that the leak WAS inside the property, and it could have been fixed 36 hours earlier than it was.

What damage 36 hours of water pouring into a property does is anyone's guess, and I'm not looking forward to my next water bill as Im on a meter! I also had to pay £75 excess to my insurance company.