Some reflections on a neighbour's boiler saga. Insurance co's engineer says boiler is beyond economic repair, so they send the customer a cheque for £500. But boiler manufacturer fixes it for £300+ (looks like parts alone cost that).
And how does the engineer get back to the customer with the part by 8 next morning? Simple. Overnight courier has a key to the engineer's van and deposits the bits in the wee small hours. Quite impressed with that.
Head office expects the engineer to fit a heat exchanger in 1.5 hours, but he insists it's a 3 hour job. They split the difference I think (didn't quite hear all the conversation). Either way, amazing how quickly you can do stuff if you do it often enough.
Strikes me that you can't apply bottom line economics to boilers and the insurance thereof. When they go wrong in a cold snap, someone has you over a barrel, and it might as well be the manufacturer.