Home insurance claim - storm damage (roof) - Poor communication, no support and now refusing to pay

therealhyper

A few months ago, we found our ceiling, walls, floor in our bedrooms, drenched in water and our child’s box room ceiling had partly collapsed and water all over his room.

Our bedroom is in the loft extension on 3rd floor which has a flat roof. Our childs room is a box room in the 2nd floor.We had buckets and tarpins every where to reduce the risk of further damage and contacted our insurance company. The claim was registered with them but disappointedly they offered no support and said they could not send anyone to due to COVID.

It was the height of COVID and very difficult to find anyone to attend and investigate the issue. However with a lot of luck, we managed to find a builder who came to have a look but said he could not climb the roof without scaffolding due to the height but clearly there was an issue at the roof of the house.

The builder managed to get a scaffolding team and climbed the roof next day. Sadly he found that the roof on the dormer had been badly damaged. The roof felt (on the flat roof of the dormer) had been ripped off and rain water had pierced through the wood work and collapsed, causing the flooding in the house. The builder said the whole roof (on dormer) would have to be replaced.

We took pictures and sent this to our insurance company, again they offered no support but did say if we did carry out any work that we should send them pictures and invoice.

We instructed the builder to repair the roof and kept insurance company informed.

When the work was completed we sent the insurance company pictures of the completed work and quote/invoice.

There was another months delay from the insurance company, they continued to say someone would call us back, each time we called them.

After escalating a number of times, we eventually had a meeting with their assessor (phone call) and spent nearly 2 hours with him whilst he asked a number of lengthy questions.

After the 2 hours the claim assessor said he could see there was sufficient detailed information including pictures and he was progress the claim to the next stage & apologised for their delay.

Several weeks later and they still had not called me or provide an update. After more calls to them, another advisor said they thought a engineer was required to do a home visit. This was strange and bizarre as we were always informed they would not attend our home due to covid, the work had been completed and their assessor had also progressed the claim.

Anyway we agreed and booked their engineer visit, who attended and took pictures of the roof and left.

Several weeks more and still no feedback from Insurance company, so I continued to chase them and a month later I pushed the advisor to tell me what was going on, he told me that the claim was being rejected as the damage had been occurring for some time based on the pictures I had sent them... in nutshell they were not going to pay for the repair work.

I am really disappointed and disheartened.

I have had to borrow money for the repair work to go ahead (over 5k), the insurance company have messed me about and have never helped me.

I don’t know what to do.

Because of the height of the roof unless I had permanent scaffolding there was no way knowing the condition of the roof and there was never any damage to the ceiling until the day the ceiling collapsed. It is quite possible the felt, which had folded over, had happened at an earlier time but I would never have known about this as the dormer is not at eye level and I have no means to access the 3rd floor flat roof.

The damaged roof is on the 3rd floor and is a flat roof on a dormer (loft extension) - example picture before so you can see what I mean (house on the left of the picture with the dormer/loft extension on 3rd floor).

I feel terribly let down by my home insurance company they have never helped / supported me.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thrugelmir

When was the flat roof last recovered? 

angrycrow

The issue with bituminous felt covered flat roofs is over time the felt lifts and breaks up. They require periodic inspection and repair and eventually they will require total renewal of the felt. This is considered required maintainance and is not an insurable peril on your house insurance. 

The insurance policy will only pay out for specific perils listed in your policy documents. It will also exclude damage from gradually operating causes as is the case here. 

There are now some very good alternatives to felt which last a lot longer such as single piece epdm rubber membranes, if fitted correctly they often come with a 50 year guarantee. 

TELLIT01

If you are unhappy with the decision I believe you can take it to the Insurance Ombudsman but don't know how that is done.  I'm sure somebody will be along with advice before long.  One question will be, how old is the roof and when was it last inspected. I understand the problems with getting up to check it, but the insurer does seem to be saying that the problem was caused by lack of maintenance.

Sandtree

Insurance doesn't cover maintenance/wear and tear but single events that cause loss.

For storm damage to be covered your local weather station must have recorded weather conditions that qualify as a storm, normally gusting windspeeds of 55mph or higher. The second condition is that you must have kept your property in a good state of maintenance, which is a general term of the whole policy. By the sounds of it they are saying that the photos show that there has been an extended period of water ingress and whilst the weather may have severely exacerbated the situation there was a maintenance issue that hadn't been dealt with.

There is no "insurance ombudsman" but you are entitled to escalate a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) once either a) you have received a final response to your complaint from your insurers or b) 8 weeks have passed since you formally lodged a complaint. 

therealhyper

Thrugelmir said:

When was the flat roof last recovered? 
Hi, thanks for responding, recovered ? I believe the roof is about 5 years old.

therealhyper

angrycrow said:

The issue with bituminous felt covered flat roofs is over time the felt lifts and breaks up. They require periodic inspection and repair and eventually they will require total renewal of the felt. This is considered required maintainance and is not an insurable peril on your house insurance. 

The insurance policy will only pay out for specific perils listed in your policy documents. It will also exclude damage from gradually operating causes as is the case here. 

There are now some very good alternatives to felt which last a lot longer such as single piece epdm rubber membranes, if fitted correctly they often come with a 50 year guarantee. 

Hi, thanks for your response and feedback.
Our new roof is fibre glass now but the old roof is around 5 years.
From what I can tell it looks like the felt on the roof was pulled & pushed over when we had the storms here and I wouldn't have known this had happened, as the roof is not at eye level and the only to check would be the have a scaffolding system installed to climb up and check the roof, as it is 3 storey high. 

therealhyper

TELLIT01 said:

If you are unhappy with the decision I believe you can take it to the Insurance Ombudsman but don't know how that is done.  I'm sure somebody will be along with advice before long.  One question will be, how old is the roof and when was it last inspected. I understand the problems with getting up to check it, but the insurer does seem to be saying that the problem was caused by lack of maintenance.

Hi, thanks for your response and feedback
ok, I will look at that, I just thought our insurance company would be a little more supportive :-(
Our new roof is fibre glass now but the old roof is around 5 years. 
From what I can tell it looks like the felt on the roof was pulled & pushed over when we had the storms here and I wouldn't have known as the roof is not at eye level and the only to check would be the have a scaffolding system installed to climb up and check the roof, as it is 3 storey hig
yes that what is being suggested I guess, but they havent sent anything in writing still. 

therealhyper

Sandtree said:

Insurance doesn't cover maintenance/wear and tear but single events that cause loss.

For storm damage to be covered your local weather station must have recorded weather conditions that qualify as a storm, normally gusting windspeeds of 55mph or higher. The second condition is that you must have kept your property in a good state of maintenance, which is a general term of the whole policy. By the sounds of it they are saying that the photos show that there has been an extended period of water ingress and whilst the weather may have severely exacerbated the situation there was a maintenance issue that hadn't been dealt with.

There is no "insurance ombudsman" but you are entitled to escalate a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) once either a) you have received a final response to your complaint from your insurers or b) 8 weeks have passed since you formally lodged a complaint. 

Hi, thanks for your response and feedback.
ok I see, not the news I wanted but that sounds like the direction they are going. The issue I have is that, the height of the roof it is un-accessible to do any maintenance without scaffolding in place to check...just seems like a way of them refusing to support. How does everyone check there roof (if they have  a flat roof)...scaffolding alone is thousands of pounds to hire ...to climb up and check..ladder wouldnt do it..due to the height from what the builders have said.

Sandtree

I wouldnt automatically get that discouraged... we havent seen the images etc and so can only go by what has been said.

If the roof is only 5 years old the that would be early for a failure but then you also introduce the possibility of poor workmanship etc which also isnt covered by insurance. 

Flat roofs are a pain, which is why they result in a premium loading. Whilst no doubt people will have sympathy on the situation it remains your obligation to ensure it remains in good condition even if it is hard to get to. A former colleague set up a business for surveying via drone with the intent to win business in the agricultural space but has had almost as much work from flat roofs and other hard to get to locals.

Ultimately if you consider that it was certainly caused by the storm on that date and not by some early problem then lodge your complaint and escalate to the FOS if you still aren't happy.

TELLIT01

Was there a warranty period on the roof?  Unfortunately you could be stuck between the roofer saying the damage was caused by the storm and the insurance company claiming it was poor workmanship.