SALLY SORTS IT: Fire caused £20,000 damage but insurer won’t pay full bill

In April 2022 I experienced a horrific incident.

After driving my kids home from school our Mercedes C220 caught fire in the driveway causing £20,000 worth of damage to my house.

I have made a claim to my home insurance with John Lewis but they only want to pay £10,000 for the repairs. I am a single mother and cannot make up for the shortfall.

JH, Malmesbury, Wilts.

You had just parked your eight-year-old Mercedes in your driveway when your ten-year-old got out of the car and yelled, “Mommy, the car’s on fire!”

You rushed in to grab a fire extinguisher, but alas, it was too late. The car fire quickly turned into an inferno and the wind began to blow sharp clouds of smoke towards the front of the house.

Firefighters arrived after 20 minutes, by which time the car had burned out and had sunk onto the tarmac driveway.

The fire has caused significant damage to your home. The kitchen window was warped and shattered, and the roof above had damaged felt, gutters and fascias. Also, the garage doors and roof were warped, leading to leaks.

It was lucky that the vehicle didn’t burst into flames as you drove down a busy road.

The AA, your car insurer, has paid out the claim for the wrecked car in full.

But you became frustrated with a series of roadblocks in figuring out other elements, not least the claim for damage to your home.

Shortly after the incident, on behalf of John Lewis’ insurance company, Royal & Sun Alliance (RSA), you invited Mercedes UK to look at the remains of the car.

You first said Mercedes were interested, but then RSA decided not to go down this route, and the automaker told you it wouldn’t fully examine the car anyway.

You were disappointed because you wanted to know why the engine had set on fire without warning.

You yourself considered suing Mercedes through legal assistance insurance, but found that you were not covered and could not afford to take action yourself.

In the meantime, you have run into problems with the claim for damage to your home.

RSA has outsourced your case to claims management company Sedgwick who, after a visit to inspect the damage to your property, suggested that you get two quotes from local contractors for the repairs.

This took many weeks as few firms were willing to do the work.

But in June, two agreed, with both priced around £20,000, including VAT.

Sedgwick rejected the bids, saying they were too high and suggesting £10,000 was closer to the target, according to his experts. You said you then asked a third builder, who also quoted £20,000, and said it was not unreasonable given that the work would include scaffolding, excavating and draining the driveway, repairing the roofs and replace the window.

After four months of nothing, you contacted me. First I approached Mercedes. Like you, I wanted to know the cause of the car fire. In addition, you were concerned that no warning light appeared on the dashboard before the engine caught fire.

My interest was also piqued by footage you found online showing other C220s set on fire without warning.

Mercedes said fires could be caused by a number of factors, but since your auto insurer had settled your claim – and scrapped the wreck – it couldn’t conduct a full investigation.

A Mercedes UK spokesperson said: “Unfortunately we were extremely limited in conducting the investigation before the car insurer settled the claim.”

I asked if there were any other complaints about this particular model going up in flames, but it declined to comment further. As frustrating as this was, at least AA settled your car claim relatively quickly.

However, your home insurance claim got stuck in the slow lane, so I asked John Lewis to step up and investigate why the claims agents refused to pay your quoted repair costs.

Several weeks passed, but in the end the insurer, sending an appraiser to your home a second time and reviewing the estimates, agreed to settle the claim at £19,000, including VAT and £500 in goodwill payments.

A spokesman for John Lewis said: ‘We are truly sorry for the delays JH experienced with her claim.

“This is certainly not the level of service we expect from our customers.”

You were happy with this result – a payout of almost double the original offer.

While you’re disappointed that the mystery of how the car spontaneously ignited will never be solved, you’re happy to draw a line under the incident – with your home repairs slated to continue this month.

Ryanair only offered £163 for our lost luggage

My wife and I flew with Ryanair from Edinburgh to Bordeaux last summer. It was a special trip to celebrate her birthday, with two nights in a chateau.

My wife had bought new clothes and cosmetics for the occasion.

However, her luggage did not arrive and we filled out missing luggage forms at Bordeaux Airport. On each of the following 13 days, we emailed Ryanair customer service for an update and received no response.

Also when we returned to Edinburgh no one could help. I heard about a storage facility used by the airline’s baggage handlers, Swissport, for missing baggage, near Edinburgh Airport. I went there the next morning.

I found her bag and one of the people who worked there said no one from the airline had come looking for it.

During the trip, my wife bought suitable replacement clothes, cosmetics and luggage.

She spent just over $900 and had receipts for over $700 worth of items, with the rest being products she bought at local markets, with no receipts.

We have sent the claim with the receipts and pictures of the items. Ryanair eventually offered us €163 with no explanation, and has refused to pay more.

YES Edinburgh.

No one wants to waste precious holiday time chasing Ryanair’s lost luggage department.

I certainly wouldn’t enjoy buying a replacement wardrobe if I had major sightseeing and leisure activities to do.

This seemed like an open and closed case: Ryanair had lost your wife’s luggage and it would have to reimburse her for everything she bought to replace it up to the limit it imposed.

On its website, Ryanair’s terms and conditions state that customers can get compensation of up to around €1,600.

These claims should be resolved within 28 days, but you say it took you more than 50 days to get your meager compensation proposal.

I pursued the airline on your behalf. It came back quickly and increased your refund offer to €520.

This was a huge improvement, but still fell short of your overall claim. I asked why.

It said it could only reimburse claims expenses if the correct VAT receipts were provided – and credit card bills were not accepted.

I’m sorry I couldn’t persuade Ryanair to cough up more, but you told me you would like to get back three times more than you were previously offered.

• Write to Sally Hamilton of Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organization giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send any original documents, we cannot take any responsibility for that. The Daily Mail assumes no legal liability for answers provided.