Salmon Assessors currently represents two large groups of dentists with surgery/office policies. It is only interested in Towergate/AXA and QBE policies.
Who we are
Salmon Assessors is probably the best-known firm of insurance loss assessors in the UK. We only represent claimants, never insurers. For 37 years, we have been settling insurance claims, both commercial and residential. And we specifically specialise in the preparation and submitting of business interruption (BI) claims. This experience allows us to negotiate on your behalf from a position of ultimate strength. We don’t allow insurers or their loss adjusters any movement to attempt to wriggle out from paying the full and correct settlement.
Salmon Assessors is a family-run company trading continuously since 1983. We are fully regulated by the FCA and are one of the very few assessors in the UK with permission to operate a regulated FCA client account (held with Coutts & Co).
Tenacity
Our reputation with insurers and their loss adjusters is one of being exceptionally tough, but extremely fair. Indeed, we get on well with every insurance company and their adjusters.
More often than not, your insurers’ agents prefer to know that a claim is professionally submitted. This saves them both time and effort.
We have online reviews on various platforms, from dentists as well. We hope they suggest that using us to prepare and negotiate your COVID-19 business interruption claim will result in a better settlement than other loss adjusters. And we have bulldog-like tenacity. Until we are convinced that a claim is met to the very maximum, we simply don’t let-go.
Check our online reputation on Google Reviews and Trustpilot.
It’s a fight
Liken us to ‘insurance claim mercenaries’ fighting in your corner. The bigger the payout, the more we earn. The faster we get that payment, the quicker we get paid. There couldn’t be a better incentive for us to achieve the best possible settlement.
Understanding the loss adjusters role
Loss adjusters are not instructed (as is widely misunderstood) to help you prepare and submit your claim. They are not your representatives.
Of course, it’s your prerogative to think: ‘Salmon Assessors are after our business so they would say that’. Don’t believe us? Here’s the verbatim sentence from Towergate’s email to a dental surgery client of ours dated 26 June 2020:
‘The role of a loss adjuster
‘We are appointing Questgates to represent us in dealing with your claim. These are experts in evaluating and quantifying your claim, subject at all times to our approval.’
And while you check our online reviews – why not check reviews for loss adjusters likely to adjust your claim:
- Crawfords Loss Adjusters
- Questgates.
In short, it’s the loss adjuster’s role to pay claimants the lowest possible amount and protect their paymasters.
The insurance ombudsman
If you are still unsure, it might interest you to read what the former insurance ombudsman, James Haswell OBE, said to loss adjusters at an annual convention:
‘It’s easy to understand why claimants are wary of loss adjusters. No matter how many times you tell them how independent you are, they know, deep down inside, that whenever there’s a doubt, you will always resolve it in favour of those paying you, and that’s the insurance company.’
Upward adjustments
It is is a rare occasion (actually we can’t recollect any such event) when a claim is adjusted upwards. Perhaps the biggest clue is the word ‘adjuster’ – one who adjusts.
Our role is to protect you, the claimant, and to negotiate and achieve the highest possible settlement.
Is it too late to instruct Salmon Assessors?
If you follow the Facebook Business Interruption Dentists (BID) group, you will therefore have noticed posts from dentists unhappy with their dealings with loss adjusters. Some of those adjusters represent the claimants themselves.
We now represent some of those claimants.
Fees
Our fees are 10% (plus VAT) of the final agreed settlement, no settlement – no fee. Our fees are a fully tax-deductible expense.
Towergate/AXA policyholders
We invite you to join our business interruption group and allow us to negotiate your Towergate/AXA claim. Our forensic accountants will not just look at the three-month COVID-19 period and compare it to the same 2019 period. This is what insurers are asking of claimants to keep claims at a minimum.
We ask you to supply us, where possible, with three years accounts so that we can find evidence, if any, of any upward financial trend at your surgery. If this is demonstrable, we can, and will, legitimately increase your claim to consider that trend.
Established and acknowledged experts in insurance claim negotiations, we have 37 years’ experience behind us.
You may be aware that some Towergate/AXA policies offer a default loss adjuster to prepare and present your claim on a gratis basis. Every Towergate/AXA surgery that we represent is also aware of this option. But still, they opt to use Salmon Assessors.
We are not reliant upon funding from an insurance company. And we are proud of that independence. We have no one to report to other than our clients.
QBE policyholders
QBE is standing particularly firm with a padlock on its purses. We were the first firm of loss assessors to proactively sign up QBE policyholders. We believed from the beginning that QBE should settle with surgeries for business interruption under its wording, and we have not wavered.
Salmon Assessors was picked by the QBE Facebook (BID) group to represent all of its members.
We invite you to join our QBE group. Some QBE dentassist policies also allow for claim preparation fees. We can therefore advise whether your policy includes this endorsement.
The comments we have made above about Towergate/AXA also apply to QBE.
What to do next
For further information please either telephone 020 8346 6060 during office hours (outside office hours text 07515 762329 and we will telephone back with two hours). We work seven days a week from 7am through to midnight.
Alternatively, please email us the following documents and information to [email protected], and we will contact you promptly.
- Copy of your full policy wording including the policy schedule
- Where possible, three years trading accounts
- The proportion of NHS to private work
- Denplan contribution to turnover
- Any furlough savings.
We look forward to being of assistance.
