Conservatory claim advice please

shoppingnoodles

Hello all.

A hole has appeared in the outer layer of my conservatory roof in the last few days-I'm guessing a lump of ice has smashed through it during the bad weather. I checked my building insurance, which states;

"cover is provided for accidental damage to fixed glass"

which I thought would mean windows and the conservatory. However, after hanging on the phone for nearly an hour to my insurance company (Towergate), there seems to be a question as to whether I'm covered as the roof is polycarbonate (like many conservatories are!) and not glass. They are sending an engineer to look at it next week.

I'm so upset about this. Can they really refuse to cover this? Do I have any form of redress if the claim is refused? I would be grateful for any advice.

Quote

Wait and see what happens?

shoppingnoodles

Thanks for the advice Quote.

I realise that it might appear that I am jumping the gun as the final decision hasn't been made yet, but I'm not hopeful as I had to practically beg to get them to send out an engineer to survey it. The claims advisor was pretty pessimistic.

It would just be helpful to me to get as much information as possible so that at least I am armed with some knowledge if it comes to the crunch!

dacouch

I would agree with Quote wait too see what they say however I suspect they will class your conservatory window as glass as the intention of the policy is to cover broken windows and conservatories.

If they do not cover it the policy includes cover for items falling from airplanes such as ice so this could be a possibility if you are under a flight path. Alternatively if you have Accidental Damage Cover they will probably cover it under that section.

I would suggest while you are awaiting for the inspection that you get a quote to repair / replace the damage from your normal supplier so they can view this when they come out as they may be able to authorise repairs while they are there.

A lot of Insurers send out Homeserve for this type of claim and Homeservce will normally try and repair the damage. I normally find them quote expensive, in addition they will probably be "snowed" under with work due to the weather so if you have a quote from a local supplier that is cheaper than home serves you can probably persude the Insurers to allow you to go ahead with theirs which could save a lot of time

shoppingnoodles

Thank you dacouch-very helpful advice. Fingers crossed!