When we first visit someone after a fire or flood, one of the first questions we get asked is “how much will it cost to use your services?”. People are often surprised when we reply that, in the vast majority of cases, our services are provided free-of-charge. They think there must be a catch.

There isn’t. Most people who use a loss assessor to make their insurance claim also need the services of building contractors and, if they decide to use our combined professional team of loss assessors and approved building contractors, then we provide the service of making the insurance claim at no cost.

Our list of approved building contractors has been compiled over many years, using stringent checks and measures to ensure the properties of our clients are restored to the highest standards – and failure to meet our standards results in removal from our approved list. All our approved contractors must also have Public Liability and Employers Liability insurance cover.

There’s one important note we’d say to anyone making an insurance claim: the contractors and tradespeople you use to restore your property should be your choice. As long as their quote is competitive, insurance companies cannot insist you use their contractors.

Managing the claim from start to finish

Our role is to manage the claim, from initial inspection by one of our assessors, through to final settlement. The building contractor works directly for our client and then pays us a fee for managing all the suppliers involved.

But we recognise that some people would prefer to use their own building contractors. In this case, we would agree with them in advance a percentage of the claim which would then form our fee. And if a client wants a cash settlement, then we also agree the fees in advance.

So there’s no catch.