Happier times with a wall, c60 years ago: Our House…
Colm Holmes, Allianz UK CEO, 57 Ladymead, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 1DB
ALSO BY E-MAIL TO RELEVANT PEOPLE & OPENLY PUBLISHED ON MY OWN MEDIA
Dear Colm,
COMPLAINT: REGARDING 3 WOODFIELD AVENUE, STREATHAM, LONDON SW16 – FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH OMBUDSMAN FINAL DECISION (Ref: PNX-5254672-Y6R6)
I don’t make a habit of complaining to Chief Executives of public companies, but Allianz’s conduct in this instance has been so poor and falls so far short of commercial decency, I believe that you and the public should be made aware of it. I think it is a matter of public concern that a legally binding, final decision from the Financial Ombudsman Service is being delayed and ignored by Allianz.
Minor subsidence was first spotted and reported to Allianz in the autumn of 2019. Less than a year later, following significant damage resulting from the subsidence, losses started to arise. I shall not delve in this letter into the Allianz-led problems that have bedevilled this insurance claim from the outset.
Suffice it to say that Allianz’s poor conduct and performance is documented in detail in my complaint to the Ombudsman in August 2024, which was clearly determined in my favour on 16 September 2025: PNX-5254672-Y6R6 (decision attached). I accepted the decision on that same day.
Frankly, you should be horrified at some of my grounds for complaint between 2019 and 2024. Allianz’s original attempt to deny liability for loss of rent in 2020 and the dishonest attempt by Allianz’s contractors, pretending that there had been storm damage in January 2021, whereas in fact they were simply lying about having done work, is bad enough. The fact that the claim was still open and the root cause not addressed until the claim was nearly five years old was strongly censured by the Ombudsman. I need not repeat his criticisms.
My complaint directly to you is because I have been met solely with silence from Allianz since the Ombudsman made his decision. I was told that I should hear within four weeks of the decision. I wrote on 6 November 2025, then again 26 November 2025 and understand that the Ombudsman also followed up with Allianz on my behalf.
A lump of money arrived in my bank account from Allianz on 28 November 2025 but without any accompanying correspondence; no statement, no calculation, and no letter of explanation. It is impossible for me to reconcile this with the Ombudsman’s ruling. It does not accord with computations I have made as to the sums I might now expect, based on the principles set out in the Ombudsman’s decision. I wrote again 15 December 2025 asking for an explanation and a computation for final settlement, presenting my own computation. The Crawford loss adjuster responded to the 15 December e-mail asking me to be patient and promising a response before Christmas.
On 15 January 2026 I wrote to Allianz & Crawford again, as I had again been met with a wall of silence. On 20 February 2026 Crawford wrote again, stating, “I have not received instructions from your insurers, and I am conscious that another month has passed.“ He said he had advised Allianz to make a partial payment of c£12,000 towards the remaining sums owing to me (my estimate c£20,000), which he promised would be forthcoming.
He wrote again on 5 March asking for my bank details again, which I sent by return, promising, “partial payment should follow in 7-10 days.“ Needless to say no partial payment has been forthcoming. Nor have my constant requests for warranties and certificates of adequacy since the remedial work was completed in October 2025 been met with anything other than silence. Without the certificates of adequacy and warranties for the 2025 works, the property remains effectively uninsurable (with anyone other than Allianz) and unsaleable, not that I curently wish to sell the house.
In short, I am near my wits end. The Ombudsman has clearly expressed his decision and the remedial work has theorietically been signed off, but I am some £20,000 short of where I should be and I still do not have documents to evidence that the property has formally been secured and restored.
Although the property is enveloped in a body corporate, it is still the family home in which I grew up. I enveloped it in Trust as a protective for my mother when she developed dementia before she died; hence the body corporate now. While I understand that, in a formal sense, emotion does not come into it in corporate circumstances, I cannot help but feel upset and exhausted by the sorry way the matter has been handled by Allianz and its contractors, in so many shoddy ways, for so many years.
As my wife constantly points out to me – 3 Woodfield Avenue could easily still have been my family home. It could easily still have been my late mother’s sanctuary in her declining years. Such properties often are owned and/or occupied by vulnerable people, who would not be able to stand up for their rights as I have been able to stand up for mine.
Our sense is that Allianz (and probably other insurers like it) have a systemic, seemingly mendacious issue with the ways such claims are often handled. Even the Ombudsman seems powerless to get Allianz to act promptly and decently.
Such poor conduct by a public company like Allianz and its agents should be called out in public. The systemic issues that underlie such poor conduct should be addressed by Allianz and by the insurance sector gnerally.
No-one should have to go through what I have been through over a slightly complicated, but basically standard, subsidence claim in suburban England. I await your comments and proposed actions with great interest.
Yours sincerely
Ian Harris
cc: The Financial Ombudsman Service, BBC Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ (Investigation Desk), BBC ‘Money Box’ (Consumer Redress Team), The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (Consumer Protection Division), Crawford & Company
