Are ur investments safe?

[tigerGT]

This is what I left Work for today. I got a call from my tennnat and ofcourse I say "Hello, How are you?", he replies that. "he is not good." This is when I knew something was wrong. HE told me that there was a little fire in the Kitchen and that I should go have a look.

This is not what I expected to see when I got there;

http://www.somersoft.com/forums/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=2753&cat=500&ppuser=5405



I am insured and I am so glad about it too. For the first year I forgot about insurance but however luckily I eventually got around to doing it. If you havnt got around to doing it yet or are planning to do it next week then my advice is do it now!!! They have made everything so easy so far.

 

[phil]

Hi tigerGT,

It doesn't look pretty, but I suppose it could have been a lot worse. How did it happen?. Was he cooking those chips in oil on the gas burner?

Phil

 

[Les]

G'day TigerGT,

A timely reminder - thanks for posting it.

"Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans" - and I bet the tenant was busy making other plans when this all took place.

As you infer, insurance is very worthwhile - we pay it, hoping we never need it. But, when we do, we REALLY need it.

Regards,

 

[softmonkey]

another timely warning - be doubly careful arranging insurance thru ur bank!

one time i arranged insurance along with the loan, manager says alls orted leave it with me... a year later was scratching my head when no renewal notice turned up... started digging and found the payment for the first year had never been deducted! turns out the manager hadn't submitted the form and the property was uninsured!!

was NOT happy... and very thankful nothng had happened...

going to use this as leverage next time i'm facing her over the desk!!

 

[JFisher]

TigerGT I hope that gets sorted quickly for you. Through the insurance arm of our business we are repairing two fire damaged kitchens; one for a landlord and one for a owner occupier. Physically very messy and very involved depending on the insurer's repair procedure (what is covered and what is not and who decides). Thankfully no-one was injured in your fire!
After cancelling one of our business policies a couple of months ago I was recently asked to forward a copy of our PL insurance for a large job we are doing; I couldn't find the policy number in my file and after calling the agent found out that he had combined my PL with the policy that I had cancelled and forgot to seperate them when I cancelled the other policy. So basically I had been uninsured for PL for 3 months; not happy. He rang the insurer to see what they would have done if a claim had been lodged while I was technically uninsured (and told them it was his fault) and they said they would have honoured a claim as long as the policy was backpayed. It would be nice to think they would but you have to wonder........

Good luck with it all

 

[smiley474]

Hi TigerGT,

It don't look good but if you don't mind me asking can you keep us posted on the turn around time, drama's hassles ect... to get it all fixed up. As someone looking to start building their IP portfolio and new to the game I'm interested to know how thing play out for you getting this fixed up. As much as I hope I don't have any issues down the road I'm convinced they will be unavoidable.

 

[want2bewealthy]

Chips.. it always happens with chips.. whats up with that?

I feel sorry for you, hopefully the insurance will go through quickly and your kitchen will be nice and sparkly.

 

[smiley474]

Chips.. it always happens with chips.. whats up with that?

Yep. I remember a year or so back my sister and her hubby were cleaning their house to move out as they had bought somewhere else so they were converting it to an IP. Anyhow they needed a quick feed put some chips in the over but a plastic bread board stuck to the bottom of the tray and in the oven it went. To cut the story short about an hour later the house was covered in black soot fortunately no physical damage but they spent all night thru till dawn cleaning up all over again and more...

Sorry had to share that story once you mentioned about the chips, it just triggered that memory!!!

 

[tigerGT]

Well after speaking to the actual tennants and advising my realestate agent about what happened I went home straight away and made the claim. I Was hoping that they didnt question me too much and didnt try to avoid fixinig it. However this was not the case and they were very helpful, I was advised that I was covered and that they would replace everythihng old for new.

The Assesor came out on the same day and wrote a report for what needs replacing. He said the next step is to send the report to two builders and then they will approve a builder and start working on it straight away. He said it could take up to 4 weeks and since I have paid extra for rent default then they will be paying the rent for 4 weeks also which is great.

I have the option to have them fix everything or take the cash required to fix it. Not sure what I am doing yet...

Anyway will keep you updated

 

[FrankGrimes]

George

You have a bit of bad luck! At least you are insured so its no biggie.. lesson for everyone

 

[kissfan]

I have the option to have them fix everything or take the cash required to fix it. Not sure what I am doing yet...

Perhaps get a quote or two organised by yourself which may help you make that decision.

Regards
Marty

P.S Glad it looks like getting sorted out without too many hassles

 

[wylie]

I have a friend who used to be in the insurance industry and she had a water claim where her kitchen was damaged (not visible - but the cupboards were damaged). She was offered the cash or a new kitchen up to a limit that was decided by a loss adjuster.

The damage was not obvious and she thought about taking the cash in case she decided to move house, which she was contemplating. In the end she decided that taking the cash meant that anything else found down the track relating to the claim would not be able to be claimed. She decided to have the new kitchen installed (just done last month) because (according to her) if some other damage was found while the cupboards were being pulled out and replaced, the claim could be looked at again, and possibly damage unseen by the original assessment could be claimed. If she took the cash, the matter was closed and any further damage stemming from the closed claim would not be claimable.

Mind you, she took three years to decide and in the meantime two other adjusters reduced the claim downwards. Obviously the insurance company was annoyed that she procrastinated and they had to hold the file open so long, so she would have had more value had she done it three years ago.

Wylie

 

[Minx]

I know exactly how you feel.

About 3 years ago I came home from work after doing a night shift and I got a phone call. I answer it and the guy tells me he is senior sergant bah blah from the local police station. He then informs me that my house is on fire. I told him he is having a laugh with me coz i'm standing in the kitchen now and it's all good. He then explains which house it was and it was one of my parent's IP's.

My parents were at work that day and i was like on auto pilot. I went upstairs and searched the safe where my parents keep all the documents. I found the insurance reciept and called them up straight away. I made a claim then took off to the IP. The IP is only a couple of suburbs away so it didn't take long. I called my mum while I was on my way letting her know what happened. I couldn't get through to dad. I get there and there are a couple of fire trucks there.

I had no idea at the time that the tenants were new and in there for something like 3 weeks. There was about 4 of them and they were like 18. One of the girls is crying and saying her cat is dead, I give my agent a look as if there wasn't supposed to be a cat. It didn't take long for the fire inverstigator to inform us that it was a faulty powerboard that had a t.v, dvd, playstation, sterio etc hooked up to it. This was hooked up in the celler and there was a brand new motorbike parked in the celler belonging to one of the tenants boyfriend.

The idiots removed the battery to the smoke detector and were lucky that someone was walking past when it happened as they were asleep.

My insurance assesor came out first. He checked it out, the fire brigade deemed it unsafe and taped the entry and exit points.

My parents had insurance with ComInsure (part of the CBA) since the 70's when they took out the mortgage for the place (as it was their first house).

To cut a long story short it was a total write off, would cost waaaay too much to fix so theu paid us out. Of course they offered 40 to 50k less than what the place was insured for.

The firemen told me that it was 1000 degrees where the fire was and the assessor was telling my that the cracks in the bricks was due to earth movement.

Luckily I was dating a structual engineer who wrote me a kick *** report. I also informed the assessor that I would be getting someone in to test the ground and soil and in their opinion write a report on their findings.

In the end he realised that I wasn't mucking around and he gave us a figure that was much better.

I was around 10k off what the policy was made out for. We figured if you went to court there is your 10k so it wasn't worth it. The assessor also in conversation when we negotiated and settled finally informed me that the CBA would be suing the tenants as it was their fault.

I have learnt that I would never ever insure with ComInsure...the CBA.

Funny thing was that the fire was barely put out and I had people offering 400k for the block.

On the bright side I scored an awesome block in primo inner Melb. My parents also gave me the insurance money and i'm currently building my PPOR. Funnily enough that was my plan to demolish that house and rebuild because of the size of the block and it's location.

 

[DavidMc]

Who are you insured with? Can you please let us know how the claim process goes... I've got a cheap rate with AAMI but it's worthless unless they pay up.

Another mate of mine has been in court for 2 years with CGU...

 

[tigerGT]

Well AAMI said that there will be two builders coming out in the next 2 weeks to quote the job. They will then call me and advise me what will be fixed etc... But I was already dissapionted when they said that they will not replace the whole kitchen instead replacing some doors and replacing parts of the kitchen. Considering what a small kitchen it is I would have thought they would replace the whole kitchen.

I will wait to see what the Builders say and what they quote AAMI for the Job. So far AAMI however have already been paying me rent as the house is not liveable. A good thing about this is that they are paying it to my account directly so im not paying the R/E agent the normal 5% commision. If you want the rent default though you need to ask AAMI for it as they do not offer it on the normal policy.

Will see what they say next week...