Insurance claim for Fire in Apartment

Hi, Can anyone give me some information on Insurance claim in southerne spain. Had a fire in October 2021. The process as I understand it is that the insurance company orgainises the work (carpenter/painiting/floors etc) to be completed  and then you put a claim in for damaged interior decor like curtins, pictures furniture etc.  Over 6 months later the work is still not complete. Has anyone any advise on how to spped thinks up and get the apartment back to Normal? Is there a regulatory body one can go to ? 

The procedure is not as you say.  It is very similar to the UK and most of the world.

The first part of your comment is fine. 

But the claim must be notified in full at the outset - arguably it is more important to do so in Spain in writing where service standards differ far more amongst suppliers.  Also in Spain there is far less in the way of proper regulation and consumer protection.

To make process you need to speak to the folk involved and ask "what's going on" - and be prepared to chase a few times!

We had a similar "hitting a brick wall" attitude with an insurance claim.  We had a suspected leak in our pool. The agent was contacted and a "specialist" was sent to assess the situation. He and his colleague were at the property for 4 minutes and took three photos. I showed them marking on the skimmer flap that had been taken over a number of days and stated that the level had not droppred in the last few days. they did not record the information. When asked for their opinion they stated that they would have to report to their manager.  Within 2 hours my wife logged into our account with the company and found that the case was closed.  I contacted the agent and he stated that the insurance company had sent a carpenter to carry out the assessment!!!!!. Over the next few weeks my wife had several conversations withe the insurance company who basically accused us of lying. Also stating the assors had checked the water meter and electric meter and also the pool self filler, and that these regitered as a "fault" elsewhere. After explaing that we were not on metered water and the self filler was off. It went quiet.  After two more weeks we employed a local pool company that carried out a pressure test and identified the problem immediatley.  They carried out the repairs, I supplied photos of the work and emailed them to the insurance company with a claim for the repairs.  It was then that they accepted liability and the claim settled.  We also had a go at them on Twitter that may've helped.

Sorry to prattle on but this was my experience, but an important lesson for us to employ an independant survey and record / photograph for everything for evidential purposes to support the claim.

Jimbofinn,

An interesting post and you did well to have your claim paid.  It's unlikely to be covered under the standard Spanish policy wording.  The usual basis for paying a claim is following the occurence of an insured peril - a fire, lightening, explosion, water damage etc etc. 

Some policies can have a wide underground services extention.  Ot they might have paid the claim, perhaps wrongly, if you you had the "accidental damage" extension.

You don't specify the exact cause of the loss/damage, which is all important, but I reckon most insures in Spain would have turned your claim down.  I have known them to cough up as they don't know their own policy wordings (technical standards are quite modest), sometimes for PR reasons (if it's a small amount) and occasionally just to "keep the peace".

For sure you generally need to have a robust approach with most insurers in Spain, as clearly you did - pity Teracota1 did not do the same.