Mis-matched repairs after caravan damage

Caravan insurance

Laura contacted us when her insurer said they couldn’t find matching units to repair her damaged caravan. 

What happened

When Laura’s caravan was damaged, her insurer said the exact-specification units were unavailable. But they’d found a good match, so weren’t prepared to write the caravan off. They thought the repairs could be completed to a reasonable standard, and offered to pay 50% of the cost of replacing the other units.

Laura felt her insurer acted unfairly when her insurer only offered to cover some of the cost and not the full cost of repairs, so she made a complaint. Unhappy with its response, she referred her complaint to us. 

What we said

We checked the reports from the loss adjuster and correspondence with the original manufacturer and found that the original fitted units were out of production. We also looked at the suggested alternatives and found that these were similar in design and colour to the originals.

We explained to Laura that her policy only covered the damage itself. In this case only one unit was damaged, so that’s all the insurer was liable to pay for.

We told Laura that we thought her insurer had treated her fairly as they had offered to repair the caravan and pay 50% of the replacement cost of the other units.