new building insurance condition at renewal re subsidence

kingbertie

Hi,

A long time ago (10yrs+) I had a 100K+ claim for subsidence on my buildings insurance. Ive been able to stay insured without any further claims by paying an extra charge due to the cost of the previous claim.

Its now renewal time and in addition to hitting £100/month I've noticed an extra condition excluding claims for 'heave, settlement, shrinkage and cracking' within my accidental damage cover, though not 'subsidence'

I've tried asking my provider for an explanation of what im losing but the lady i spoke to could only really explain what accidental damage covers normally, eg knock a glass of wine over onto the carpet, stick your foot through the ceiling whilst wandering around the loft ... but not how it applies to subsidence.

Given that the above condition sounds very much like the symptoms of subsidence, im concerned that im actually losing some or all of the cover that i really need.

Does anyone know how a claim could be made for these symptoms under accidental damage ?

Also, is this the only place I can get advice ... M.A.S (useless) passed me onto BIBA ...who turn out to trade focussed only, who could only offer their 'find-a-broke' service who are only interested in new quotes, so i tried the Financial Ombudsman for say go back to the insurer,... but that aint easy as they operate on a non advice basis.

Grateful for any help.

Thanks

dacouch

What this tends to be is an insurer wanting to clarify that Subsidence is not covered under the Accidental Damage section of the cover. Because their is a section of the Policy eg Subsidence that more specifically covers heave, settlement, shrinkage and cracking.

If that makes sense.

caliew

Hi, I have worked in insurance for a number of years but I have just left due to childcare. Unfortunately I cannot offer advice I can only present different scenarios and options the reason being is if you get stuck in a claim situation and you get knocked back I would have hated to make any recommendations that didn't work out to your satisfaction.

Scenario based information as follows:
As you have experienced subsidence one of the questions is usually somewhere along the lines of 'have you suffered any subsidence, heave or landslip in or within 150 meters of the home?" Basically subsidence, heave or landslip is standard peril so under section one of buildings policy covers these as standard perils.

'heave, settlement, shrinkage and cracking' I am surprised that is under accidental damage and not down as a peril. Unless say for example under the accidental damage section of buildings something like accidental damage could be putting a foot through the ceiling or drilling a hole in the wall. So say you had a crack in the wall by drilling and accidentally broke the wall, or a drill caused vibrations that heaved the ground up that could possibly be covered under buildings accidental damage but if it was cracked through heave, settlement, shrinkage and cracking on the back of the property previously subsiding as that could be a possible structural sign its subsiding again and that is a pre existing fault and is causing that structural damage unfortunately may not be covered giving what you are saying.

I am surprised the clerk used knocking a glass of wine on the carpet as an example of accidental damage on buildings, because the best way to look at this is if you could tip your home upside down if such a thing could occur, everything that falls out is under contents insurance and everything that sticks to the ceilings walls and floor is buildings insurance, so fitted kitchen comes under buildings, fitted bathroom comes under buildings. The carpets tend to come under contents (because they can come up and be removed) unless say solid wood/laminate flooring that is glued down that would tend to come under buildings so the red wine on carpet could have been irrelevant when discussing buildings.

Hope this makes it a bit more clearer.

kingbertie

thanks for replying ... the only bit i dont get is the part about possibly not being covered for further subsidence. The last claim meant the whole house was under pinned and drains fixed, thus the subsidence was fixed. Wouldnt any more subsidence mean a new claim ?

dacouch

kingbertie wrote: »

thanks for replying ... the only bit i dont get is the part about possibly not being covered for further subsidence. The last claim meant the whole house was under pinned and drains fixed, thus the subsidence was fixed. Wouldnt any more subsidence mean a new claim ?

Does is mention anything about previous Subs claims or about further claims

kingbertie

no nothing new relating to previous or further subsidence claim in the renewal

dacouch

Is it described as "Changes to your Policy" and if so does it have any other exclusions

kingbertie

yes but nothing related to subsidence, eg damage whilst sub let, damage whilst making modifications

dacouch

It's almost certainly as I described in my post two.

Basically the Insurer only wants to pay for Subsidence claims under the Subsidence section of the policy. They want don't to cover a claim that does not fit into subsidence section but cover it in the Accidental Damage section.