Ron and James faced significant inconvenience during winter when their boiler issue was misdiagnosed under their home emergency cover.
What happened
Ron and James’ boiler stopped working during a cold winter. They had no access to hot water and heating during this time.
They told their home insurer who also provided home emergency cover. But despite various visits and efforts over the following weeks, the insurer’s engineers couldn’t fix the fault.
The insurer later discovered their engineer had diagnosed the fault incorrectly, so they’d been unable to fix the problem. Disappointed, Ron and James hired their own engineer who corrected the problem quickly.
Ron and James complained that, as two elderly people who find it less easy to get around, they spend most of their time at home. They said they were uncomfortable because of the cold, and it had caused them sleepless nights.
They also couldn’t invite friends around as they normally would. They said they were using their kettle for their washing and to fill the bath.
The insurer said as their daughter lived nearby, they could use the water and heating at her house. It also sent the couple portable heaters. The insurer thought this would help make things more bearable and also offered Ron and James £250 in compensation.
What we said
We reviewed the case and thought the insurer should have been able to fix the fault much sooner than it did. The insurer’s repeated errors caused a lot of inconvenience for Ron and James.
They were without heating for around two months longer than they should have been. The insurer also caused them a lot of worry and day-to-day disruption.
We accepted that engineers visiting on many different occasions was inconvenient and having to arrange an engineer to sort things out had been added effort. We also noted that their daughter lived nearby, but we agreed with Ron and James that making regular visits to her home wouldn’t have been practical given their situation.
We upheld Ron and James’s complaint and asked the insurer to pay a total of £700 for the distress and inconvenience that had been caused. That was on top of covering the cost of an engineer and the higher electricity bills from using the portable heaters.