Our slates damaged next door's car.....

moonrakerz

There was a "similar" case I read a few years ago. I can't remember the exact details but it was something like this:

A man saw that a tree in his neighbour's garden was almost falling over onto his own house/garage after a storm. The neighbour was away on holiday and another storm was forecast. So he got someone in to dismantle the tree before it fell down completely.
Now the rub - his or his neighbour's insurance companies didn't want to know. He was basically told the the only way he could claim was to have let the tree fall down, even though his actions saved the insurance companies a lot of money !!

ArchieB_2

What was he claiming for though? The damage already caused or the cost of removing the tree?

moonrakerz

There was no damage at that point, he removed the tree before it fell on his house !

shockingmoment

justwannabeloved wrote:

Hi

Your neighbours car insurance would then claim back off of your building insurance to cover their lost.

We are hearing this alot at the moment with all the storms/ bad weather the uk has being having.

regard
justwannabeloved

thanks for that. just to be clear - my neighbour claims on his car insurance - then his car insurer claims from my house insurer?

my home insurer never mentioned this when i alled about the claim!

mattymoo

They may try to claim it back but unless you have been negligent, they will not succeed.

Not wanting to knock justwannabeloved but she has only just started out handling material damage claims where the payouts are in accordance with the policy wording.

Liability claims against third parties and their insurers are something claims handlers need around 3 yrs experience before they handle these claims. The claims are dealt with in accordance with english law and the tort of negligence. Earlier posts have already indicated that there does not seem to be any liablility on your part.

justwannabeloved

Hi

In reply to the last posting. Please could I point out that as claims advisors we dont personally with other insurance companies like was suggested in the last posting.

When we take claims over the phone, we are the first point of contact for the insured and their claim, & we are basically filling in the claims form to speed up the claims process for the insured, and stating whether you are or are not covered by what you have on your policy.

We will also appoint trademen to carry out any work via fax/email whilst insured on the line and inform them of who will be in contact with them to attend and deal. We then send the claim to the settlement office so the claim will get handled by the PIM (Personal Incident Manager), it is down to another department who actually deal and complete the paperwork / money side of the claim, and not us on the phones.

justwannabeloved

justwannabeloved

shockingmoment wrote:

thanks for that. just to be clear - my neighbour claims on his car insurance - then his car insurer claims from my house insurer?

my home insurer never mentioned this when i alled about the claim!

Yes, that is correct.

Your neighbour will need to claim off their car insurance, and their car insurance company will want your buildings insurance details, so they can contact them and claim back off your insurance.

regards
justwannabeloved.

mattymoo

No it is not correct. Please re-read the thread again. They can try to make the claim but will not succeed because they cannot prove the op has breached his duty of care to his neighbour.

courtjester

Assuming we are talking about the UK Jan 18 storms (see BBC News), it is pretty clear that this was so severe that any damage would be regarded as due to the weather and entirely accidental (i.e. free of blame or individual liability). Buildings were in some cases literally torn apart, so any suggestion that one building or another was poorly maintained *causing* damage to third party property due to flying debris etc. would be completely ridiculed.

Good neighbour relations are one thing, but nobody should be under any illusion that they have liability to a neighbouring car owner for damage to their car during a severe storm simply because the debris originated from your property. So many people seem to take a simplistic view of these types of events - "it's not my fault, so it must be someone else's ...I don't see why I've got to pay... who can I blame?"

Consider the case of a meteor from outer space crashing into your neighbours house and totally demolishing it - in the process, some roof tiles were thrown onto a neighbours car. Is the owner of the car going to approach the now homeless houseowner and want them to pay for the car damage too?

Remember, both parties have suffered damage - the problem with cars seems to be the way car insurance is arranged differently from ordinary property insurance and the way that people are always looking to disclaim responsibility and foist it onto someone else to protect their NCD.

clear_blu wrote:

Just as an aside there was talk around 20 years ago about introducing 'No Fault' insurance. That is where it was not necessary to prove negligence.
Anyone know what was the outcome of the discussions..........???
Sorry we know what the outcome was but does anyone know why were the proposals not adopted...........??

A no-fault system would be far more practical.

See the scenarios:

(1)
A person is knocked over and gets brain damage in a car accident - car driver at *fault* and insurance pays out multi-zillions in legal damages and person gets care for the rest of their life.

(2)
A person has an accident causing brain damage which is nobody's fault. No-one to blame and no insurance policy to cover the injury. So no payout from anybody and person (or their family) struggle for ther rest of their life to try and salvage some quality of life.

Is this fair? Is it right? Should it matter that there is someone to blame or would it be better to have arrangements based on the victims injuries, not whether someone has been negligent?

The only reason that a 'no-fault' system will never be introduced is because lawyers make too much money out of the 'blame' culture.:cool:

lisyloo

The only reason that a 'no-fault' system will never be introduced is because lawyers make too much money out of the 'blame' culture.

I think that if you have a "no fault" system then people will suddenly be tripping over left, right and center.

Just think - anyone with debt problems just has to walk into the nearest car and their problems are over.