Subsidence claims

What to expect if you need to claim for subsidence.

Subsidence claims can often take longer than 12 months to conclude. This can be due to a number of factors but rest assured that our expert team will deal with your claim as quickly as possible.

Firstly, we need to determine the cause of the damage to your property. To do this, we often engage the services of specialist Loss Adjusters and Engineers. Once appointed, they will contact you to arrange a virtual or physical inspection of your property.

They will then assess your claim and communicate the outcome to you.

It's important to note that often claims submitted turn out not to be caused by subsidence at all and that common issues not associated with subsidence include:

• Wall tie failure
• Poor construction
• Lack of maintenance
• Roof spread
• Thermal movement
• Lintel failure

So, if your claim falls into any of these categories, then that’s good news and it means that your property is not subsiding and that we might be able to provide some guidance on what to do next.

If you do have a valid claim then it’s likely that we will need to carry out site investigations to determine the exact cause of the damage and the correct course of action to make things right. These typically involve:

• Drain surveys
• Taking soil samples
• Tree surveys
• Monitoring your property – which can take many months

When we have determined the cause of the problem, then we will typically look to remove or fix it and this often involves:

• Tree removal - 70% of subsidence claims are due to vegetation
• Drain repairs - 25% of subsidence claims are caused by leaking drains

Occasionally, the damage can be caused by a tree or drain on someone else’s property and or under someone else’s control. If this is the case, we may involve experts to assist in the mitigation process to ensure that things run as smoothly as possible and this can mean things take longer.

Once we have fixed the drains or removed the tree, we will check that your property is stable and that things are returning to normal. This can take several months whilst the property and the ground beneath it recovers.

We will usually ask a contractor to prepare a schedule for the necessary works whilst we are undertaking these other stages. This is done so that we can begin repairs as soon as we have determined that your property is stable and to avoid further delays. Alternatively, if you would prefer, we are able to offer you a cash settlement at the value of the estimated works after the deduction of your policy excess.

Once monitoring and repairs have been completed, then our engineers will be able to provide a Certificate of Structural Adequacy to demonstrate that the cause of the issue has been removed and the property is stable.