I wish to make a buildings insurance claim for our current
chimney...which apparently needs repointing, capping and the sailing
brick work around the pots rebuilding as it has buckled over the years.


I know that there is this thing called a pre-existing condition under
which the insurance company will not pay out. Understood. However, if I
were to leave the situation, the chimney will likely crash through the
roof one day causing untold damage and cost.

So I would like to make a pre-emptive strike and claim now to fix the
situation. The question is do I

a) Get the work done and submit a bill to the insurance company (since
there is evidence of repointing necessary and this could quite likely
have been caused by high winds)

or

b) Ring the insurance company, explain there has been a bad storm and
as a result the chimney needs repointing (not entirely untrue) and risk
them sending an assessor to check the damage

Help?