Friday 21 January 2011

insurance

We have - so far - avoided a repeat of the burst pipe incident - but one of the silver linings of our water disaster is how very good our insurers, Hiscox, and our insurance broker, RKHarrison, have been.  People often forget the reason you have insurance is that when the 'shit hits the fan' the bloody insurance actually works - as it certainly has in our case.  How often have I heard friends, who once boasted how little they paid in premiums, bemoaning how, strangely, these discount insurers make every effort to wriggle out of the claim when disaster happens.  The other benefit of having the disaster is meeting and talking to the experts who have come to view the damage and make recommendations so the other day I had Patrick Baty the foremost paint archaeologist in the World ( who I once played soldiers with years back) clambering over the scaffolding in my Great Hall taking samples of paint witht he aim of establishing what the original colourt scheme was. all very exciting and proving once again that every cloud has a silver lining.