During the rains recently, our tenant left a window open and some water staining occurred on the carpet in the lounge room, probably about a meter square or so. No hassles with the tenant at all, but we were surprised to find that after lodging a claim and noting our policy has a $1000 excess, that a so called ‘assessor’ had come out to the place and cut out the offending square of carpet leaving the floor boards exposed without reference to us.
It’s Saturday so no-one from the relevant department of the insurer is available to assist us with our issue until Monday, however the person we spoke to today suggested that their agent would take such action in the event that the stained carpet presented a hazard.
Now I’m not sure how much more of a hazard a stain can be than a removed section of the carpet and a subsequent uneven section of the floor next to a window (trip hazard possibly for the infant at this house). Also the child has already started to sample the culinary qualities of the remaining underlay. Since we can probably replace all the carpet in this room ourselves for less than $1000 (remember it’s a rental so it’s not the finest berber we’re putting back in), where should I stand in terms of dealing with the ‘company’?
- Committing to paying the excess and having the company’s agent put back a square of probably not matching carpet (which appears to be their default position);
- Telling them to get stuffed, cancelling the policy and laying new carpet ourselves;
- Refusing to pay the excess and demanding that the company now replaces the now completely ruined carpet, which we are now totally committed to replacing thanks to the arbitrary actions of the ‘agent’.
I’m leaning towards option 2, we might have just lived with the stain honestly, it didn’t really make a difference to the functionality of the carpets, we (probably naively, knowing all the hoohaa with flood damage and insurance companies in general of recent weeks) assumed that an assessor would look at it and make a recommendation, if anything.
We like our tenants and don’t want to f**k them around, they need a floor. Viewpoints rioters?