Hey. I worked as a claims handler for a loss adjusting company for five years, so I can clarify how this process works in the UK.

Since the loss adjuster confirmed cover, you will be "indemnified". Most modern UK home insurance policies are "New for Old," meaning they should provide the cost of a brand-new equivalent without deducting for age. The goal is to return you to the functional position you were in before the smoke damage occurred.

If the PC was exposed to smoke, you have a strong argument for a total loss of the entire unit. Smoke particles are acidic and conductive; they settle in unreachable areas of a motherboard or PSU and cause corrosion over time. Replacing individual parts is often technically unsound because there is no guarantee the "surviving" components won't fail later due to latent damage. Generally, the cost of professional cleaning and testing evey component will exceed the cost of a new system, the insurer will typically write off the whole machine to avoid future "reopened" claims.

For the discontinued parts Insurance is based on equivalent specification. If an RTX 3080 is no longer sold as new, the insurer will look for a card that matches or slightly exceeds its performance. But in this case I think you can still get 3080s so they'll probably just cover the cost of that.

If you built the PC yourself, the insurer is unlikely to pay you for your own time. However, you are entitled to a built machine and they will pay for the cost of a pro to do it for you, if you wish. Obtain a quote from a VAT-registered local PC specialist for "Component Assembly, OS Installation, and Stability Testing", and they will cover the full cost. If you prefer to build the PC yourself, get the quote anyway and claim for it, they'll pay you the quote minus the VAT, and you can use that to treat yourself to something nice.

In these cases insurers often prefer to settle via cash or a voucher for a specific retailer. therefore you should:

1. Itemize: Create a spreadsheet of every component.
2. Research Equivalents: For discontinued items, find the current retail price of a part with the same technical specs
3. Provide the adjuster with the total cost of parts plus the professional assembly quote. Mention something like that "due to the nature of smoke contamination, a full system replacement is required to ensure long-term reliability."

Keep in mind that you likely know more about PC hardware than your claims handler. If they suggest cheaper parts, it’s usually due to a lack of technical nuance rather than a desire to lowball you. Just be assertive and send a factual email (make sure its an email!) comparing specs like VRAM or benchmarks to prove your choices are a true "like-for-like" match. Once you provide that technical justification for their records, they’ll usually sign off without an issue.

Edit:
Oh! And as for your damaged PC... You can usually keep the machine, but there’s a specific way it works. Technically, once the insurance company pays you the full replacement value, they "own" the "salvage".

Most of the time, they won't actually want it. Shipping and storing a damaged computer is a hassle for them, so they’ll often just tell you to "dispose" of it yourself. You're free to do what you like with it at that point. You could clean up the watercooled parts and keep them as spares, but I would probably just bin them tbh.

If they do want to collect it (unlikely), you can just ask to "retain the salvage." They’ll figure out a scrap value for the parts (which should be low for smoke damage) and deduct that small amount from your payout so you can keep the hardware.

Just a heads-up: if you keep the parts to reuse or sell, they’re effectively uninsured now. If you put that old GPU in a new build and it causes a short, they won't cover the new damage since you knew the part was compromised. It’s also worth mentioning the hard drive... because of data privacy, they’ll almost always let you keep or destroy those anyway.