Home Insurance Claims - Do you have to use your ins companies preferred Supplier?

I thought that you could use anyone to repair or renew something as part of an insurance claim and the insurance company could not offer you less money. There is an article in Issue 10 of FSA news, dated October 2001 (sorry I can't add link as I am new to the forum) which says it is illegal for insurers to force customers to use their nominated suppliers and also they are not allowed to offer a lower payment if they don't use the preferred suppliers.

However yesterday one of our customers who is claiming for a damaged carpet gave us a mandate from Independent Inspectors to pay for the carpet. I rang them to make sure we could get the payment. They said no the customer must use one of their nominated suppliers. I mentioned this FSA ruling and they said this was not true that an insured person must use their preferred supplier and it is not illegal.

So my question is, are what Independent Inspectors telling me true or does the FSA ruling see above still apply. I want to be able to give my customers advice with confidence.

I decided to ring the FSA and check that this item re preferred suppliers still applied. They confirmed that yes Consumers do have the right to insist that they use their own preferred supplier when getting work done or replacement stuff. The only caveat they gave, was that if you used the Insurers supplier and they did a bad job you had extra protection because the insurer will be jointly liable for the work and that the insurer would not have to pay you any more than they could get the work done for by their own supplier. So if you want to use your own tradesman etc with an insurance claim you will probably have to fight your insurance company but they cannot force you to use their supplier.