Insurer fails to send plumber for two months: the claim that never arrives

Two months without a plumber: a home insurance failure

The insurer Génesis, now part of Generali, has gone two months without sending a plumber to a home with water damage. The loss adjuster requested one urgently more than a month ago. The company's response is straight out of the negligence handbook: hire the professional yourself, pay, and then claim the amount back with the invoice. The written confirmation, requested two days ago, still hasn't arrived. This is not an isolated case: in Granada, the recent earthquakes have overwhelmed repair companies, and insurers are outsourcing the work to third parties with long waits.

What to do when your insurer doesn't respond

The practical route is to hire a plumber on your own, but with backup: keep all invoices, photograph the damage before the repair and log every conversation with the insurer. That is the basis for a formal claim and, if things drag on, for claiming late-payment interest. The obvious drawback is that the homeowner fronts the money and waits for reimbursement. That's why you should demand written confirmation before taking the step and, if it doesn't come, alert the company's customer ombudsman. Experience shows that this simple step unblocks many cases.

The context that partly explains the delay

In Granada, the earthquakes have repairers working flat out. Insurers admit they lack staff and that interventions are delayed. A two-month wait may not be contempt for the customer but a genuine capacity problem. That doesn't excuse the lack of communication. If the company knows it can't meet its deadlines, it should refer the customer to an external provider on its own initiative, without waiting. The question is why it doesn't. The answer probably has more to do with the cost of handling the claim than with the urgency of the damage.

So the affected homeowner faces a dilemma: keep waiting for a crew that never shows up, or pay out of pocket and fight afterwards. Most choose the latter and end up leaving the insurer. The company saves one call-out but loses a customer. In the long run, the maths doesn't add up.