Am I covered?

mparter

It appears that there's been a leak in my bathroom somewhere which has caused some water damage to the ceiling in the room below. The tiles on the bathroom floor have also craked and I suspect this may be to do with the water swelling up the plywood underneath.

I have Buildings and Contents both with Zurich insurance. The contents includes accidental damage but the buildings doesn't.

Will the insurance cover me for the repair of this damage?

lisyloo

Not being funny but wouldn't it be a good idea to call your insurers and ask?

mparter

Trying to get a feel for whether or not it's likely to be a yes or no.

mr_fishbulb

Depends on the insurer and the policy.

lisyloo

I would have thought you would be covered.

I am assuming that the leak just occured (through wear and tear) rather than an actual act by yourself (like leaving the bath to overflow or putting a nail through a pipe).
If it just happened then I don't think it's classed as an accident.

You may have to pay an excess and your insurance will go up substantially next year but there's not a lot you can do about that.

shelly

I think its best you call and ask your ins co. My neighbour got a crack in her shower tray which went un-noticed until the water made a mark on the downstairs ceiling. She wasn't covered for anything as its classed as wear and tear.

bookgirl_2

You should be covered for the damage caused by the water, i.e. the ceiling and the tiles, but not for the fixing of the problem itself. The only difficulty would be if this was something you should have noticed before it got this bad, or if the bathroom is in a poor state of repair.

Your insurance company may send someone out to have a look to check the above, and as mentioned previously you will have to pay an excess and lose any no claims discount you get at present.

greenwich

mparter wrote:

I have Buildings and Contents both with Zurich insurance. The contents includes accidental damage but the buildings doesn't.

From memory, my house insurance covers us for damage caused by escape of water. Before you call the insuers, have a careful read of the policy section on escape of water. I think you may be covered by that section and the accidental damage cover may be irrelevant here.

mparter

It appears that it may be something around about the plughole area underneath the bath although I can't see under the bath properly. The fact that it only happens when the baths been used backs this up. However, we've got 2 kids so no baths is out of the question. I've put a wee tub underneath where the leak appears to be to prevent anymore damage.

We've only been in the house for 7 months and the bathroom was done by the previous owner not long before we bought the place.

bookgirl wrote:

You should be covered for the damage caused by the water, i.e. the ceiling and the tiles, but not for the fixing of the problem itself. The only difficulty would be if this was something you should have noticed before it got this bad, or if the bathroom is in a poor state of repair.

Seems crazy that they would repair the damage but not the cause of the damage as it would simply just happen again.

bookgirl_2

mparter wrote:

Seems crazy that they would repair the damage but not the cause of the damage as it would simply just happen again.

Its because the source of the leak is due to wear and tear which will be specifically excluded under the policy. Everything else is due to escape of water which is covered.

silvercar

We had a leak from an enclosed shower fitting.

The insurance paid for all the repairs in the room below that were damaged by the leaking water - ceiling and carpet. They wouldn't pay for the removal of the tiles on the wall to the shower unit. This is called track and trace and is excluded from most policies. They wouldn't pay for the repair to the shower unit as this is wear and tear.

It was then shown that the wall had warped from the leak so they paid for that section to be repaired and made a contribution to the cost of retiling it. We then had a moajor arguement with them about whether they would pay for the whole bathroom to be retiled or just the section that had been damaged. In the end they paid a contribution to the cost of retiling. I argued that it was unreasonable to have two diffent sections of tiling in one room. They said that was personal choice and they don't cover matching.

When it was time to renew the policy, they doubled our premium, even though this had been our only claim in 5 years! We took out a policy elsewhere.

"Quote me happy!" NOT