Empty property insurance - wording of policy

Reardoa

I'm with Gollum007 on this one and as rightly point out insurers will have different views. My experience of unoccupied insurers is that they a bugg#r for paying out. The upshot is don't take out FLEEA policies. Its a lot of money of what in essence is fire only cover.

Dangermac

I disagree. Fire should be covered.

Also, please bear in mind that the policy is not excluding Malicious Damage. It simply does not cover it.

So unless the policy excludes claims caused by malicious damage, Fire should be covered

Fire/Proximate Cause is getting into fairly technical areas, which do not necessarily lend themselves to a forum such as this. Particularly as there is much case law in this area.

But my opening statement is probably most relevant here. Malicious Damage is not excluded - it is simply not covered. And there are legal differences between the two

DM

Dangermac

Reardoa wrote: »

I'm with Gollum007 on this one and as rightly point out insurers will have different views. My experience of unoccupied insurers is that they a bugg#r for paying out. The upshot is don't take out FLEEA policies. Its a lot of money of what in essence is fire only cover.

And if fire were not the proximate cause, there would be no need to have fire as an insured peril, since most fire claims are started accidentally, by electrical faults, malicious damage etc.

Seditious_Libeller

On the basis of conversations with several insurers, I'm with Dangermac.

I would just add though that level 1 cover is a very poor option. The last figures I have seen showed escape of water claims accounting for around 30% of residential property claims and about twice as likely to occur as a fire claim. Wherever possible I still try to arrange policies on an all risks basis and persuade my clients to agree to inspection/security/minimum temperature requirements.

Most property or home insurance brokers should have access to half a dozen schemes offering unoccupied cover and a decent premium shouldn't be too far out of reach.

From a claims perspective only around 1 in 5 typical household claims will be covered by Level 1 cover. Worth considering paying a few pounds more to protect such a valuable asset.

Zorillo

It's not even a specialised area of insurance, it's an empty private residence awaiting sale. All insurers offer a basic level of cover for risks like this on a daily basis, and all of them would cover arson.

Not all insurers will want to offer a quotation for a new policy where the building is empty and up for sale, but any company that does offer a quotation will cover arson. As evidenced by the helpful links provided by Gollum.

Where restrictions might be imposed is on empty commercial or industrial property, derelict property, or property so exposed to the risk of arson that writing the cover would be silly. Those are covered by specialised markets, but that doesn't apply here at all.

Proximate cause couldn't really be less relevant. Fire cover is cover for fires. The cause of the fire is only of interest when there is a possibility of recovery of the loss from a responsible party,
or uncertainty about the cause.

gollum007

Bluntly, you're wrong, and digging yourself further into a hole here.


An empty private residence with an indeterminate period of cover (until sale) is in an entirely different risk bracket to that of a fully / partly furnished property for which there is a known / approximate date of return.
You may be in a more advantageous position if the existing insurer is willing to continue coverage on an unoccupied / unfurnished basis, but taking out new insurance with a property in this state will likely limit you to the specialist insurers.



Furthermore, proximate case is totally relevant here- A little basic case law on the subject:
Wayne Tank & Pump Co. Ltd v Employers' Liability Assurance Corporation [1974] ( https://swarb.co.uk/wayne-tank-and-pump-company-ltd-v-employers-liability-assurance-corporation-ltd-ca-1973/ )
In layman's terms, this states that where the proximate cause of an insured event (e.g. our arson fire) is split between two perils, one of which is included, and one is specifically excluded, the insurance is entitled not to pay out.


The position on this is then further clarified by the following, amongst others:
J J Lloyd Instruments Limited v Northern Star Insurance Co Ltd [1987] ( https://swarb.co.uk/j-j-lloyd-instruments-limited-v-northern-star-insurance-co-ltd-the-miss-jay-jay-ca-1987/ )
Again, in laymans terms, this clarifies that if the proximate cause is split between two perils, one of which is insured, and one which is not mentioned (NOT excluded), the insurance must pay out.




Again though, please note that this is solely an opinion and NOT legal advice.

Zorillo

Can you find a single example anywhere of a UK residential property insurance covering fire but not covering arson?

FlameCloud

gollum007 wrote: »

Bluntly, you're wrong, and digging yourself further into a hole here.


An empty private residence with an indeterminate period of cover (until sale) is in an entirely different risk bracket to that of a fully / partly furnished property for which there is a known / approximate date of return.
You may be in a more advantageous position if the existing insurer is willing to continue coverage on an unoccupied / unfurnished basis, but taking out new insurance with a property in this state will likely limit you to the specialist insurers.



Furthermore, proximate case is totally relevant here- A little basic case law on the subject:
Wayne Tank & Pump Co. Ltd v Employers' Liability Assurance Corporation [1974] ( https://swarb.co.uk/wayne-tank-and-pump-company-ltd-v-employers-liability-assurance-corporation-ltd-ca-1973/ )
In layman's terms, this states that where the proximate cause of an insured event (e.g. our arson fire) is split between two perils, one of which is included, and one is specifically excluded, the insurance is entitled not to pay out.


The position on this is then further clarified by the following, amongst others:
J J Lloyd Instruments Limited v Northern Star Insurance Co Ltd [1987] ( https://swarb.co.uk/j-j-lloyd-instruments-limited-v-northern-star-insurance-co-ltd-the-miss-jay-jay-ca-1987/ )
Again, in laymans terms, this clarifies that if the proximate cause is split between two perils, one of which is insured, and one which is not mentioned (NOT excluded), the insurance must pay out.




Again though, please note that this is solely an opinion and NOT legal advice.

I'm not sure either of those two cases help your argument as Arson does not appear to be excluded in the Lvl 1 policy (simply not mentioned) and would therefore seem to fall under your second case.

If you want some more-

Austin vs Drewe (Fire within the context of a policy is the ignition of something which should not be on fire, or the escape of fire from its normal bounds)

Harris vs Poland (added to the above claim the maxim that it matters not if the fire comes to the thing (i.e. the insured property) or the thing comes to the fire

An argument may be made that the initial source is the deliberate ignition, but I cannot see how any claim would not succeed for the subsequent spread and smoke damage.

ODST

Arson is fire. The poster saying arson is malicious damage is wholly wrong.