HELP! Home Insurance flood payout

Quentin

sh86 wrote: »

.......I did read the terms and conditions and believe that a tributary (which is what is near us) is exactly that and not a river.....

Isn't a tributary actually a river/stream that flows into another river (or lake)?

Aretnap

A tributary is a small watercourse which flows into a larger watercourse. It's quite possible for a tributary to be a river - the River Lea, for example, is a tributary of the River Thames.

In the absence of a specific definition of river, it would depend on the ordinary meaning of the word. In common useage "river" generally implies a reasonably large watercourse; personally I would not understand a small ditch with a bit of water at the bottom to be a river.

sh86

I think that is going to be our argument. This ditch isn't even a metre wide, you can step over it and up until now it has never had water in it. I wouldn't class that as a river either.

Spikey1

I don't think that should be your main thrust sh86...you may lose that argument. By all means use it as a secondary argument.


I think CIDRA 2012 is your strongest challenge. It seems to me that you could not be reasonably expected to have known about this dry ditch/river/stream (whatever you want to call it). It wasn't on your land, didn't form part of your mortgage survey (as far as we know), it is not visible to you, its not on a map & no-one else had told you about its existence.


On this basis I think you have every chance of winning your case.

sh86

Thanks Spikey. My main argument will be that we have never been aware of it.


It is on a map, now that I have checked...but it wasn't brought to our attention when buying the house and it isn't visible from anywhere other than my neighbours property.

InsideInsurance

Whenever you do a complaint you should go for the blunderbuss approach - throw as much muck as you can and hope that at least some of it sticks. If you complain on a number of different points they must address each of them individually. Whilst any one on its own may not be enough to get a resolution the combination of all of them may well swing things in your favour.

Certainly use both arguments that you were not aware that there was a ditch there and even if you had been you werent aware that a ditch would be considered a river in answer to their question/assumption

sh86

Just a quick update.


My insurance company are refusing to pay out because I answered No to 'Do you live within 400m of a riverbank, seafront or lake"


Well as far as I'm concerned a tributary isn't any of the mentioned. They are also disputing the fact that I should have known it was there, even though it cant be seen from any public footpath. The only way I could see it is if I went onto my neighbours property which I believe is trespassing.


They also claim I answered no living in a flood risk area. I don't believe that question was ever asked of me and I checked my Statement of Facts for the policy and that question isn't on there either.


Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to update with those that offered advice.


Thanks again.

Spikey1

Hi sh86,


Don't be disheartened. Request a further escalation of your complaint.


From what you have told us in your previous posts you could not have reasonably expected to know that there was a watercourse of any kind on your neighbours land.


Once you get to the top level of complaint (usually 2 or 3 escalations from your initial complaint) then your Insurers will know that next stop is the FOS. They will then have to seriously consider whether they can win this one. The FOS will charge the insurer and escalation fee. Worse still for the insurer is that if FOS find in your favour, this will be recorded against them. FOS publish a league table of overturned insurers decisions....its not good news for an insurer if they are placed low in the table.

22johnny22

sh86 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.


I wondered if insurers did a search on your postcode when applying with them? This insurance was taken out a week before we even moved in, I'm unsure how I was to know that some sort of water was present as it was never raised as a concern in our environmental searches when buying the house.

Did you do a search on your postcode?

Google earth is always a good place to get an overview

Best of luck