So I had a claim rejected (in late jan) by EBM recently after there was some heavy rain and roof damage to my investment property. The damage wasn’t super bad but there was a leak and I needed a plumber to fix it. I didn’t know this but the property had a leak in the past which was supposedly ‘repaired.’
Assuming storm damage I called my building landlord insurance company EBM put in a claim and was advised I need to get at least two quotes from two different plumbers (Keep in mind plumbers charge for quotes)
The 1st plumbers charged a $49 callout fee and refused to go on the (townhouse) roof with getting a lift which the quote would then cost me a further $695 (I called EMB to explain that to get a quote from plumber 1 I needed to get this guy on the roof and I wasn’t going to basically pay 700 for a quote twice).
EBM refused to cover the cost and said they would look into my claim and get back to my by close of business that day (They didn’t they called me a few days later)
In the mean time I had another plumber (#2) who charged $100 call out fee also didn’t go on the roof quoting me 450 to basically paper over some cracks (which wouldn’t fix the leak). – insurance were very keen to go with this guy even though it didn’t fix the problem.
I then chatted to a family friend who recommended a bloke was roof plumber who ‘eventually’ came out no call out fee and went on the roof for free gave a quote and everything was fixed in 3 weeks happy days.
Apparently when the roof was not put in to propert regulation (Plumber #3 said to me) something was slightly out of place and he fixed it up for a reasonable price of $850 – for parts and labour.
I was really open and honest with EBM and fair enough because it wasn’t deemed ‘storm damage’ they rejected my claim after I sent them the invoice for the plumber (#3) (I’m not mad about that that’s life). It did however take them weeks to inform me they rejected my claim
WHAT PISSED ME OFF
In that 3 week period the obviously knew they were going to reject my claim they sent me policy renewal almost 4 months early in a hope I was just pay it and after having to chasing there ‘claim consult’ for about 2 weeks (when I called her she told me ‘she would call me back in 20mins – 5 days later).
Now obviously I’m not going to renew with them because they made the process difficult and instead of being straight with me like I WAS WITH THEM they ran me around and then shafted me trying to get me to renew for 12 months before they did it.
I also think them rejecting my claim is a bit of bullshit considering they didn’t send a independent assessor out but I’m not going to complain the plumber seemed pretty honest (could of charged me a lot more ) but I could of easily bullshit and said it was all Storm damage (but that isn’t who I am).
I also got the vibe there were trying to worm there way out of payment even if it was storm damage! (because of some of the comments the ‘claim specialist’ made prior to plumber #3)
Thought I should let people know they did a pretty shit job by me, NOT because they rejected my claim but more so the way they did it and then trying to get my to pay $1000 four months early. (ALSO NOTE I HAD ANOTHER PROPERTY WITH THEM WITH REQUIRED RENEWAL AT THE SAME TIME BUT I NEVER GOT A NOTICE FOR IT DURING THE PERIOD OF TIME).
I thought I should say something to all other landlords; EBM might be cheap but will give you the run around when you actually need them if you had a good/bad experience with them let me know.
P.S Not trying to bad mouth but im just putting my experience up because i know a lot of people on this forum are with them or have considered going with them
Is there a strata manager? If so maybe bugging them could be the first action.