What do you do if you’re a decorator and you get asked to price a job which is being paid for as part of an insurance claim? We asked members of the Decorators Forum UK to share their advice about being asked to price an insurance job.
Just charge £50 per quote for that type of work. A homeowner is asked to get 3 quotes, and then a lot of the time they pocket the money anyway. I reckon you might win 1 in 6 or 7 insurance quotes you go to see. Some people don’t mind paying you the money, others are put off, but that’s fine by me.
Waste of time in my experience. They just use you for a quote so they can claim the insurance money. They probably go on to do the work themselves, or get their regular decorator in to do it.
I price a few insurance jobs every year, most of which I don’t get. It really annoys me to be honest. It’s not easy being a decorator and running your own business. It might take an hour or more to go and see a job then type it up. That’s another hour I’m away from my family. I think I’ll start charging after reading some of your comments.
They can be ok. They generally give the funds to customer so you’re not waiting to get paid from them. If it’s someone I don’t know I charge for an insurance quote because there’s a lot of people who will just want the quote but have no intention of giving you the work. I just say it will be deducted from the job if I’m successful in getting it.
You do tend to get messed about a bit. Homeowners are asked to get quotes for a pay out a lot of the time. I have had a couple of good ones, but not many. A lot of decorators I know charge for insurance quotes, which is fair enough to be honest.
I’ve quoted about 10 in my time and never got 1. Waste of time in my opinion. Having said that, if someone asked me to go quote tomorrow for an insurance job, I can’t refuse it. Running around comes with the territory when you’re a self-employed decorator.
I Always charge for insurance quotes as they tend to just want a quote to get money…did 5 last year and didn’t get one.
Been stung a few times on insurance quotes. As above 👆don’t bother! Too much running around for no work!
Stay away! they have set prices already for each task and they will not pay anything else, save your time and energy on jobs you know you can win👍
Charge high. I normally tell the client I’m charging high and putting £100 for them towards there excess so they push for you to get the job. Normally it’s the client who pays the insurance company, give them the money.
I’ve just done one, I was asked to do an insurance quote and a private quote for the same customer (separate work in the house) I added on a lot on the insurance job to cover materials for the private job and doing the customer a favor. When It came to payment, he tried saying I said he can keep the insurance quote money and that I would just charge him the same day rate throughout on the private job, but for the whole job. Didn’t back down from that and he coughed up the money. But just be careful they do try it.
As everyone else has said, I’ve done a few quotes and never heard back from any of them. I think they send the quote off and do it themselves.
Do what David Fortnam says, that’s great advice. I do the same or even sometimes crank the price up and say I will do an extra room as well. The customer will get loads of quotes. Weeds out the cheap ones and just sends the insurance company the top three quotes
Go and get your own experience, I’ve done a few now and not charged and not been messed around. I was worried sick as I hear all the stories on here
I was asked to provide a price for an insurance job in May 2018. Customer agreed with the price & a start date for the work was agreed. I was left hanging on by the customer as they had agreed that I would be carrying out the work. In my opinion we should be charging for insurance quotes.
If the decorator/builder has quoted for all decorating but only painting areas effected, Costomer has to do the rest. Literally only painting over the dry damp areas, is this right