Plum Underwriting Ltd - Basildon

Sue Astle

I had my first major house insurance claim following a house fire in June and really cannot fault Plum Underwriting at all. Although the work has taken some time, this has not been excessive. Payments have been prompt and the appointed loss adjuster has been very fair. I've had no wrangling over any aspects of the claim and all staff have been helpful and very responsive. From speaking to contractors and friends with far more experience of insurance claims than I, I can see that I have been very lucky to have been insured with this company and I highly recommend them.

Lynda Smith

My overall satisfaction was marred by a significant delay early in the process due to the assessor failing to contact the managing agent to arrange access to the property on the pre arranged date. He failed to notify anyone that he had not attended the property on the agreed date. No one seemed to know what was happening, the company kept advising that they were awaiting his report. This delayed the entire process by around a month. Once this issue was resolved everything proceeded smoothly.

Carly Steel

Do not risk your property with these insurers. I filed a claim for a water leak 7 months ago. The company said they were not going to cover this and then stopped replying to all my efforts to contact them. They ignored my requests to send me their complaints policy. They closed my file. I contacted the financial ombudsman who said that Plum were liable to pay the claim. They have since responded to say that they will pay and have accepted responsibility. However, it gets worse. They have not send the payment and are now ignoring my efforts to contact them again. I have to go back to the ombudsman to ask them to contact Plum again to get them to transfer the funds that they are liable for. I have still received nothing. Be warned, stay away! Pay a little extra to get a policy that will cover you for when things go wrong.

Joanna Wildy

BE warned that Plum underwriters refused my claim on a burglary during the daytime when I was in a front room in my house and someone walked in through an unlocked but closed back door and took 2 laptops and several other items of significant value. I heard the burglars but I thought it was my daughter so luckily I didn't go and investigate. They refused the claim on the basis that it was unforced entry. I have never claimed on a household policy, I am 57 so I have been paying into insurance for over 30 years and I think that my record would show that I look after my house and my possessions and I am disgusted. Please check your policy and if it does not suit you then I would suggest that you change.

Ian Ross

First time I have used Plum Underwriting. A wonderful lady Victoria Sampford dealt with and 'owned' my claim from start to finish. She dealt with all my queries very quickly and efficiently while not forgetting to be human. In a nutshell, she was absolutely brilliant.

MattFox DMMA

Terrible insurer, terrible customer service. Do not insure your property with them. Avoid like the plague!

I mistakenly took out a buildings insurance policy with them in 2017. I had previously been insured by Hiscox, but unfortunately they no longer provided share of freehold insurance so had to change. The broker I used were recommended, so I assumed they had found me a reputable insurer.

When I was informed by the person who I had agreed the sale of my property to that their survey had showed up a potential subsidence issue, I informed them straight away , via my broker. They came back after a week with a very brief email saying they were excluding subsidence cover from my policy, because we had not informed them of the issue (which is exactly what I had done). They offered no more information except they may reconsider if I had a structural engineers report done.

Confused I went back to them to get a few more details and they claimed that the cracks in the building were old and had been there prior to me taking out the policy. (I have no idea how they could possibly know this as they are underwriters and not surveyors or structural engineers).

I then got hold of a survey, which had been done on the building a year prior to us first purchasing the policy, which categorically stated that "there is no evidence of subsidence" on this building. This clearly rebuffs their initial assertion that there was problem with subsidence prior to taking out the policy. At this point they completely changed their story and used a paragraph in this survey which was general disclaimer (ie that the building was of a certain age and therefore movement could occur at some point in the future-something you could say about most buildings in London) and claimed that because the survey contained the word "movement" in it we should have disclosed this to them and because we hadn't they were excluding subsidence from my policy.

In addition to this, the correspondence I received was incredibly rude and arrogant, with phrases like "there is nothing more we are prepared to do" ie shut up and go away. They consistently did not respond to my questions when I asked for further clarification.

This decision has had a massive impact on myself as it means the sale of my flat is likely to fall through and we are likely to miss out on buying the home we have been planning for, also resulting in me wasting thousands on fees. .Given the significance of this to us, I feel they could have at least been prepared to explain their decision properly.Their replies have been rude, arrogant and flippant. It is among the worst customer service I've ever experienced.

At this stage we are not making any claims and are not aware that any work actually needs doing, but they are clearly trying to absolve themselves of paying out any money for future claims on cover that they should be providing.

I am now going through the complaints process to get their decision overturned, but this will no doubt take months and the impact it will have will not be reversible.

PLEASE DON'T MAKE THE MISTAKE I MADE. BUILDINGS INSURANCE IS TOO IMPORTANT, GO WITH A REPUTABLE INSURER WHO WILL NOT TRY TO WRIGGLE OUT OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES.

Plum are not even cheap, I took the price of the policy as an indication of quality, but that was so wrong. I will have to live with the consequences of this unfortunately.

I have given one star because I am unable to give zero (actually I'd give minus 10 if I could)

You'll see below, they have indicated that they are going to "work with me" to resolve my complaint. Well all they've done is respond with no conclusion and when I asked for them to compensate me for the structural engineer's report, which they made me unnecessarily have done, they have simply not responded. So not what I'd call "working with me" is it?

Admin mail

Our property was flooded following a leak in our roof caused by the storm that hit the U.K. in May 2018. The fire brigade even had to check our property for no electrical hazard as the water was pouring down our 2 floors. The surveyor report was shocking, disputing the existence of a storm when this has been reported by all media and witnessed by the fireman! I am just about to start fighting their rejected claim and will take it as far as needed to get the entitled compensation and my customer’s rights respected. Stay away by all means from this company which is unlawfully not honouring their insurers duties.

Ross Bampton-Aiken

The team who dealt with my claim were really efficient. Emails were responded to within a day or so and I got the impression they were not minded to quibble. All in all a very good experience.