Roof Insurance problem

cherylsurrey

Over Christmas my fathers roof starting leaking into one of the rooms upstairs during the storms, he was not able to see a lot from a ladder, due to the small gap between the neighbours house and his meaning its only really accessible to have a close look via scaffolding.


The builder from the insurance company used a camera to see what was going on with the roof and said that Dad's roof was in good condition and could not see any issues. The leak seemed to stop after the really bad storms, but today it has started again with the terrible rain. A retired builder friend of his thinks it's the flashing on the chimney but said no one will know 100% unless they get up there on scaffold.


What he is worried about is the insurance, it's clear from the builder that the roof has been well maintained and the damage happened during the storm, but could the insurance company try and get out of paying out on this claim, as no one can say for sure exactly what is wrong? someone suggested to us they may try and get out of paying or are we just worrying over nothing. He currently has approval for a new ceiling and redecoration in the affected room.

huckster

The Insurers will pay for any necessary works to find and repair damage as a result of storm. It just needs someone to get up on the roof to find out the cause and to fix it.

Difficult to answer this type of question on an online forum, because how smoothly a claim goes will depend on a proper investigation by an experienced contractor. If part of the roof is the neighbours, perhaps it is a problem on the neighbours side and water is coming across underneath the tiles. If this was the case, I would have thought that the neighbour would also have a problem.

dacouch

huckster wrote: »

The Insurers will pay for any necessary works to find and repair damage as a result of storm. It just needs someone to get up on the roof to find out the cause and to fix it.

Difficult to answer this type of question on an online forum, because how smoothly a claim goes will depend on a proper investigation by an experienced contractor. If part of the roof is the neighbours, perhaps it is a problem on the neighbours side and water is coming across underneath the tiles. If this was the case, I would have thought that the neighbour would also have a problem.

Assuming it was caused by storm damage.

Leaks through lead flashing are quite typical in heavy rain / with the wind blowing in the wrong direction when the cement that fixes it to the roof and chimney fail. The cement failing is normally due to age and is not normally covered by Insurance as it's a maintainence issue.

Although there's a reasonable change of it slipping through the net with the current amount of claims and assuming no scaffolding it generally costs circa £300

cherylsurrey

The roof belongs to my Dad, what I meant is that there is only a small gap between his house and the neighbours, meaning the only way of having a proper look is on scaffolding, you cannot access the chimney on a ladder, this is why they did an inspection using a camera.


This problem only started when we had the major storm, before that there were no problems, which is why we are saying storm damage as Dad has maintained the roof which the builder agrees with, the big problem is that without scaffold we cant really see what's going on, and we are worried that the insurance wont pay out as there is no access to the roof without scaffold. Is a camera inspection as good as a visual one from scaffold? The builder says that when he looks at the chimney with his camera, he can see nothing wrong.

Quentin

As it has leaked there must be "something wrong".

Unless it is storm damage to the roof the insurance won't cover the roof repair.

Irrespective of what caused the water to get into the house the internal repairs will be covered.

dacouch

cherylsurrey wrote: »

The roof belongs to my Dad, what I meant is that there is only a small gap between his house and the neighbours, meaning the only way of having a proper look is on scaffolding, you cannot access the chimney on a ladder, this is why they did an inspection using a camera.


This problem only started when we had the major storm, before that there were no problems, which is why we are saying storm damage as Dad has maintained the roof which the builder agrees with, the big problem is that without scaffold we cant really see what's going on, and we are worried that the insurance wont pay out as there is no access to the roof without scaffold. Is a camera inspection as good as a visual one from scaffold? The builder says that when he looks at the chimney with his camera, he can see nothing wrong.

The cement holding the flashing in place typically gets noticed during a storm as the combination or a strong wind and rain can get forced under the failing flashing and show as a leek.

Insurance does not cover the normal maintainence of the house of which the cement holding the flashing in place would normally be classed.

Lead is used as it's water proof, heavy and malleable it's used to water proof joints eg where the chimney meets the roof and would normally happily survive a storm but tends not to be able to when the cement fails. The cement holding it in place has a set life, once it fails it becomes crumbly allowing water to get behind the flashing and show as a leak.

Insurers are very aware that flashing causing a leak is normally not storm damage and Insurers generally decline these as claims.

The purpose of my post is to make you aware there's a chance the claim may not be paid.

Out of interest before this incident when was the roof last checked or worked on?

cherylsurrey

Thanks for all your replies, I really appreciate it.


The roof was checked and repairs done on it 3 and a half years ago, the builder who came out for the insurers agreed it was in good condition and well maintained, and could see nothing wrong with his camera. This is why it's so annoying, no one can tell exactly what's going on due to the lack of access to the chimney.


A local builder came out and quoted to do what he thought would fix it, but he had to make an educated guess due to not being able to have a close look and quoted £1250 inc VAT, a good proportion of which is scaffolding costs.


Dad can afford that repair, what's been annoying is the amount of time it has taken from the damage, to now, and being left in limbo as to what to do as it is all taking so long to send someone out etc.. I suppose the insurance companies are inundated with claims so just cant cope. It is nice to know that the interior repairs should be covered, as I would think a new ceiling would be expensive. I just have to wait for a call back now, to see what they will do.


We are wondering if it would be better just to get the local builder in who quoted to repair the damage, if they start taking along time to assess it, as every time it rains more damage is being done and we don't want this to go on much longer.

Quentin

You won't be penalised in any way by limiting the damage, and getting the leak repaired.

(Was the last repair guaranteed? If so get back to the repairer.)

cherylsurrey

The last repair did not involve the chimneys as they did not need work, and from the photographs the builder took from the insurance they are in good condition, but of course you have to get up there to see what's really going on, it is probably something very minor, just complicated by the fact we cant get up and have a proper look without scaffold.

FlameCloud

Quentin wrote: »

As it has leaked there must be "something wrong".

Unless it is storm damage to the roof the insurance won't cover the roof repair.

Irrespective of what caused the water to get into the house the internal repairs will be covered.

Not really, you would either need an all risks policy (rare in domestic policies), and you would need AD cover on the policy. Plus, a number of AD covers are now starting to exclude this type of incident.

randykurm

If the one have insured the relative property of the one and the same got ruined somehow then the only way out is that the entrepreneur got some reliable claim from the insurance company. One should not forget to get along with the authenticity along while claiming for the insurance claim.