pipe burst and insurance not paying

Euphoria1z

hi,

didnt know where to put this...asking on behalf of someone...

if the house above has had a burst pipe and damaged your property (major water damaged flooring and contents etc) and the person who owns the property that had the burts pipe has insurance but the persons property and contents damaged doesnt, should the insurance pay out coz the insurance company is not paying out saying "it wasnt negligence on the persons part"?

so the persons whos had their things damaged through no fault of their own cant claim on the other parties insurance? is this right? hope this makes sense

(i take it the answer might be that they should have had their own insurance? )

dacouch

To be able to claim against the flat above, you would need to prove negligence.

A pipe bursting would not be negligent on it's own, it would need something like the owner / tenant ignoring obvious signs or it being damaged or a history of it leaking and them not repairing it.

Euphoria1z

thanks, but why would the insurance not pay out if its just accidental damage? why does it have to be negligence? does it depend on the insurance/policy or is this just a basic rule with all insurance companies?

dacouch

Accidental Damage applies to the policyholders possessions.

The part of a policy a third party eg you claims from is under the liability section which normally says it covers claims "the policy holder is legally liable for". The term "Legally liable" means that a court would normally find them to be negligent and thus liable.

Finst

I think this is just the way it works for all insurance policies. The reasoning for it goes something like this:

If you damage some else's property through negligence, then you could be sued to pay for the damage, so your insurance covers the damage

If a leak develops in your property that wasn't caused by negligance and there was nothing you could reasonably be expected to do to prevent it, then you can't be sued because you've taken reasonable steps to prevent it. So your insurance doesn't pay out.

I was in a similar situation at my previous property. Our (recently serviced) boiler failed and flooded the flat below overnight. We had contents insurance but our downstairs neighbour didn't. Our contents insurance refused to pay out for their damage. There was communal buildings insurance paid through service charges, which did pay for some stuff.

Fire_Fox

The upstairs resident cannot insure someone else's possessions against accidental damage, that is why you have your own contents insurance.

Torry_Quine

Agree that you can only claim against the upstairs neighbour if they were negligent. Examples like this show why everyone needs to have insurance.

Euphoria1z

ok, thanks every one.

dacouch

Assuming there's building insurance on the property it will cover damage to the property eg your walls, wall paper, ceiling, flooring (Not carpet) etc.