This a a long story so I will do my best to keep this as short as possible. 5 years ago a well known british gas company came and did some work in our loft. A while after the ceiling in one of the bedrooms fell down. It transpired that the person from the gas company left a tap on in the loft which caused significant damage and caused the ceiling to fall down. The ceiling was confirmed to have contained asbestos. The ceiling fell on top of many items in the bedroom. We were told to claim for the damage and items through our house insurance. An asbestos specialist was brought in to test soft furnishing items to see if they had any traces of asbestos on them. The items in question included baby items and bedding. The specialists advised us that you can only do a spot test on soft furnishings which can only prove that asbestos was not apparent in that particular spot. They said that fibres could easily be spread out over the soft furnishings and therefore the spot tests for soft furnishings were not reliable and could not prove asbestos wasn't apparent anywhere. So they said it was their recommendation to dispose of all the soft furnishing items in question as the risk was too high. So we did. Then months after disposing of the items our house insurance turned round and refused to cover most of these items. They paid for the Hoover as this was used to initially clean up the ceiling debris before knowing asbestos was present, as well as the carpet in that room. But they would not cover the carpet elsewhere even though the Hoover was used after this around the whole house. We are out of pocket thousands and thousands of pounds for items that the house insurance wouldn't cover as the spot tests came back as negative, despite the gas company taking full responsibility and liability for causing this damage. This complaints case is still going 5 years later. I am looking for any professional advice on this and how the asbestos potential contamination in this case should have been handled please. It would be really appreciated.

A salutary lesson - don't anticipate the action or agreement of the Insurer. Get everything in writing first.

You have my sympathy, but I doubt you'll have much success after the fact.

go go go for [and be very quick about it] the gas company as they have fobbed U off re the use of your own insurance as its their insurance that should be involved noting that U will need some sort of proof of negligence and harm thereafter and I doubt one of the 'claims' solicitors will take the case so get the HSE involved/informed and use the companies own admittance against them

in all case where asbestos could have/has contaminated soft furnishings then all those soft furnishings should be disposed of ASAP by a competent person to a proper place and an ordinary vacuum cleaner should never be used

Also remember that your baby could have been effected but show no symptoms yet!!?
best of luck