ok here goes.....

tinkerbell1978

i know nothing about cars but today as you all know the weather has been awful, my OH came home saying he had to get a lift as the shop he works in has a garden centre and the garden centre wall fell and landed on his car what the heck do you do?? claim on insurance? but then his insurance would go up no? and it wasnt exactly his fault as he wasnot in the car and he was parked in the correct place parking spot etc?! or would the work place claim on their insurance?? confused!?

marcellep

Right correct me if I am wrong.

Your OH parked in a car park? With is usally owners risk

If the wall was blown over due to the severe weather we have been battered with then no insurance company will pay out as this is classified as a act from above.

Now if the wall came down as it was not fit for its purpose then thats a different story.

I would suggest that he contacts the owner of the wall and talks with them re the damage.

If he does not get anywhere he can simply claim on his insurance providing he has comp insurance. But this will affect his price.

Hope that helps

Astaroth

Dont know where people are getting confused on acts of god from.

If he has comprehensive insurance he can claim off his own insurance for the accidental damage.

The insurance company will then decide if there is a case against the wall owner... they/ you would have to prove that the owner was (or should have been) aware that the wall was in a state of disrepair and that the owner had sufficient time to make repairs. If you cannot prove this then it is simply seen as an act of god and therefore a claim against the policy (hence why it is a no claims discount and not a no blame discount)

Gingham_Ribbon

Is it worth taking photos of the wall in that case, if he is going to have to try to prove that it was in a state of disrepair?

dunstonh

if he is going to have to try to prove that it was in a state of disrepair?

You can pretty much guarantee that it is in a state of disrepair now

tinkerbell1978

want to say thanks to everyone for replying blasted thanks button wont work

courtjester

70-80mph + winds - bearing in mind the amount of damage reported in the media across the UK due to this storm with buildings wrecked, trees down, walls blown out, people killed etc, etc, it is pretty safe to say that the owners of the wall will have a good defence to any claim that the wall fell down due to improper maintenance.

The only likely course of action is to claim on the vehicle's comprehensive motor policy if it has one.

jamesd

courtjester, what proportion of walls in the UK would you say fell down due to the weather conditions? I expect that the answer is sufficiently low to indicate that properly constructed and maintained walls did not simply fall down in most places unless something unusual happened to them, like a tree hitting them.

Inadequate construction by the garden center sounds like the most likely cause, and them paying for the damage sounds like the most reasonable sollution.

The winds were very high in places but even so, the normal range of peak gusts over a ten year span across the UK goes to 60+ mph. Unless that was exceeded locally I doubt that it's reasonable to conclude that it was just weather at fault.