declined roof claim-nail sickness?

stinky_5000

Hi, just had the surveyor from the insurance company out..i lost a couple of tiles in the big winds 12/2 (as my roof is high up a builder said it would require scaffold and be pricey so go through insurance)

My claim was rejected as the guy said i had "nail sickness" he said he could tell this as a few other slates had slipped which means my roof was vulnerable to weather.

My argument was that when i bought the house in 2007 a had a survey done and it said that the roof had been re-slated relatively recently but to a poor quality.. so the first job i had done when i moved in was a roof overhaul, at a cost of 1.5k ish
So to my mind as a person who knows nothing about roofs can i really be expected to have known i had nail sickness..i never noticed the slipped tiles, just the ones that flew off in the gales!! I feel i have done what i thought to keep the roof in good repair??

When i rung Morethan to complain the women said maybe when they re slated before i owned the house they reused the old nails... surely no one would do this?? i know nothing but i would not re use a nail?!! how much money would that save??

Wondering if it is worth complaining or whether they never give in over these things?? typical...first claim i have ever tried to make!!

InsideInsurance

Unfortunately they have one of a number of clauses that they can use to decline the claim:

1) You have a duty to maintain your property in a good state of repair - arguably you can use the invoice from the work you had done in 2007 to show you've been trying to

2) Poor workmanship is excluded

What exactly did you have done for the 1.5k? Is it the same company that came out again recently and suggested going through the insurance?

There is never any harm in complaining after all you've got nothing to lose and something to potentially gain. To be most effective you need to know exactly what grounds they have declined on and address all the points they raise

TSx

Definitely make a complaint - the ombudsman view is that if the damage wouldn't have happened, were it not for the storm, then the claim should be covered.

Most policies have an exclusion for faulty workmanship under accidental damage and not under the general exclusions (although some do) - however they would need to prove that it was faulty workmanship.

vaio

Nail sickness is when the nails used to hold the slates on rust away.

If you had the roof re-slated in 2007 you haven't got nail sickness unless your roofer used drawing pins rather than galvanised or copper nails.

Stick a complaint in to the insurer

System

It depends what the "roof overhaul" consisted of.
I suspect not a complete removal of all the slates and then re-nailing?

More likely they just renailed any that seemed loose.
The ones that have just blown off will be some of those they didn't re-nail.

vaio

Yep, but if it was a repair rather than overall then just drop back to the suggestions given in post #3

Either way, the claim should be paid

InsideInsurance

vaio wrote: »

Yep, but if it was a repair rather than overall then just drop back to the suggestions given in post #3

Either way, the claim should be paid

Why should the claim be paid if the OP had a survey report done saying needed the roof overhauling but they'd only had a repair done to one or two bits?

vaio

Where do you get "repair" from? Assuming they are telling the truth, the OP is clear, they had the roof "overhauled"

My point is that the stated reason for declining the claim is "nail sickness" and on a roof that was re-slated this century this is pretty much impossible and sounds like a claims handler/loss adjuster trying to pull the wool over the OPs eyes.

My house was built in 1860 and it took until the last five years before the nail sickness got to the stage where we had to redo it although we did do the occasional running repair for maybe 15 years prior.

As for the nonsensical insurer suggestion that the re-slating was done reusing the old nails :rotfl::rotfl:

stinky_5000

Thanks for all the replies... not sure who did the work before i bought the house? so dont know what they did... it was just the homebuyer survey that said it had been recently reslated due to presence of mismatched slates and underfelt showing..this was described as poor workmanship so thats why i had it overhauled when i moved in.. not sure what the builder did i guess he just fixed any dodgy looking bits? he has now retired and moved to france!! it definitely involved scaffolding front and back ...
The builder i asked to fix the storm damage last week was just the first one in the book i could find!
Well i will try a complaint, as regardless as to wether or not i have the sickness..i feel that i have tried to make sure the roof was in good condition by having the recommended works done..
The guy was saying these old victorian rooves blar blar and it never clicked with me at the time, i have modern felt so it is not like the nails will be victorian... o well, will report any news!

dacouch

Was it the new tiles that blew off in the storm or the old tiles?

stinky_5000

Not 100% sure but they look new in that area.