Insurance a must, says house fire victim whose home has cost £175,000 to restore after horror blaze

Wendy Lilley and her son Thomas have had two months in temporary accommodation and six more in a rented flat after an electrical fire wrecked their Thorpe Hesley semi.

They got the go-ahead to move back in last month but Wendy said there was still work to do with the repair and redecoration cost having already passed an eye-watering £175,000.

Financial advice service Finder estimates that over six million households are not covered by buildings insurance and more than three million have no contents insurance either, even though it is available for as little as £6 a week.

And Wendy said: “A lot of people I have spoken to have not got insurance.

“I was speaking to a woman in a shop and she said she did not have any home insurance.

“When I showed her the photos of our house, she said she was going to go home and it was the first thing she was going to do.

“You never think it’s going to happen to you especially through no fault of your own.”

The fire last October, in which Wendy and 12-year-old Thomas’s seven beloved pet dogs were killed, is believed to have started in an electrical socket.

Fire damage was mostly contained to the kitchen but acrid smoke from the blaze left the whole house covered in a grey grime and with a strong smell throughout.

Wendy said she had been forced to throw almost everything out and because the electrics had been ruined, the property had needed to be completely rewired.

“We should should have come back in May but in the end it was June 1 before we were able to start moving back,” she said.

“We were at Tankersley Manor Hotel and temporary accommodation before we found a flat on Meadowhall Road, where we have been for about six months.

“It has been a nightmare and it’s still going on.

“The whole house needed rewiring and they had to strip it back to the bricks.

“There are still some issues to be resolved even now and up to now, the repair costs have been £175,000.

“If I had not had insurance, I don’t know where I would have been.”

Wendy said she wanted to thank everyone from friends to strangers who had rallied to the aid of herself and Thomas by making collections and going out of their way to help them.