Well FINALLY we have got somewhere.

If you remember our first set of blog posts from Feb 13th about the storm damage (here, here & gallery here) from this point it’s been like pushing water up a hill to get the whole insurance process sorted. And there are some lessons we’d like to share with you.

Firstly I can’t stress enough that you need to get yourself a SKYPE ACCOUNT!
One of the main issues we ran into was that all the insurance numbers are local rate numbers in France. These CANNOT be dialed from outside France so straight away you are hitting a barrier to even start your claim process.
This is where having friends on the ground helps however a SKYPE OUT account where you can call landline numbers from your computer (or iPhone in our case), and the FREE numbers remain FREE (see small chart below or full list here)

• France Premium Rate – 0891 – £ 0.194
• France Premium Rate – 0892 – £ 0.250
• France Premium Rate – 0893 – £ 0.250
• France – Shared Cost – £ 0.130
• France-Toll Free – £ 0.00

So first tip is SKYPE, get yourself an account now it’s not just for computer to computer calls.

The 2nd issue is the length in time it takes quote to come back. I’m not going to harp on about this as this seems a regualr issue of mine with the total lack of percieved desire to get new work from French builders.

Anyway that processed took just under 2 months to get right & we got our first quote back around 4 weeks after we asked the two builders to attend site. The 2nd quote came in around 8 weeks, by this time we’d submitted the original quote to the insurance due to these delays.

The two quotes varied in costs by the tune of  €2,500 and in what each builder felt needed doing. I’ll be publishing the quotes shortly for you to compare, but the long and the short of it, the insurance company took the €8,500 quote and proceeded to work off this. Then after discussions back an forth with their “experts” they settled for €6800 which lucky for us covers the 2nd quote that finally arrived from our preferred builder.

With the payment agreed we’ll be getting the first payment of €6,300 into our bank any time now, and the final €500 on completion of work. So that’s part one completed, now lets see how long it actually takes the builder to do the work.

What we’ve learned

• If like us you’re not actually in France and are trying to do this remote then good contacts are a must. For us a great bank manager is a life saver, create and keep your contacts.

• Skype was a fantastic service. Using Skype our bill for all the calling we did came out at €4 that is far far less than we were paying before.

• A good reliable builder is a MUST.  Using our preferred builder we’ve actually managed to blend some of the work with starting repairs on the house, but you really have to sit on these guys to motivate them.

• There appears to be a remote project management business opportunity in France. If we could have paid someone locally to handle this for us we would have done. Between going back and forth to deal with this our travel costs have been around £600, so for a €500 fee i would have gladly paid out to have someone on the ground local so this.