Bike Insurance

Am going through a claim with Butterworths (The LCC one) at the moment for the Brompton and I must say so far I'm not that impressed. Butterworths themselves were very helpful, however they use a different loss adjuster company called Merlin, who appear to be rubbish.
Butterworths state that unless your claim is received within 28 days of the theft then they close the case, so I made sure I got all the forms filled in, proof of purchase etc sent to them via recorded delivery on the 19th April.

I rang Merlin on the 3rd May to check they had received my claim and it was progressing as I hadn't heard anything - but understood that it had been Easter, and bank holidays etc. I was told someone would ring me back, nothing happened.

Rang back again next day, finally spoke to someone who seemed to be able to help me, I explained the situation, she said that they hadn't received any bike claims for a while, I explained that I had sent it on the 19th, she re-iterated that they hadnt received anything. I then read out the proof of delivery and the name on it stating that they had received it on the 21st April, she went a bit quiet (obviously recognising the name I had read out) and said that she would check with the admin dept and ring me back, that was last Thursday.

After getting sick of waiting I called back today, only to be told by the same woman, that they were still sorting out the mail from the Easter bank holiday! I mean whilst I appreciate that a company may get some extra mail after a bank holiday, I can't really accept that it takes over two weeks to sort it?
She said that she 'wanted to get it sorted this week as she was going on holiday' and that she would call me back as soon as she heard anything.

So far, I'm far from impressed and will be telling Butterworths as much.
I will update if and when this woman decided to find my claim and ring me back.

Quick update on this, and things haven't improved, after waiting another two weeks I finally get a letter, asking for a few extra pieces of info and some photos of various things. I notice that at the bottom of the letter the claims manager has put her email, so I have a cunning idea and send her all the info, along with attached photos to her email address, thinking that this would stop any further delays as they can't seem to handle dealing with actual paper mail.
So I send the mail, nothing..
5 Days later, I send another mail - asking if she had received the previous one (there were some attachments that could have feasibly got blocked), I also add that if I haven't had a reply by the end of the week I would call her...nothing.
So I call this morning, explain the situation to her and get the reply 'Oh I haven't got to last weeks emails yet...'

Amazing.

I've already decided that whatever the outcome of this, I will be moving to another insurer who doesnt use Merlin and will be telling Butterworths why.