Home Insurance in war

Andy_L

Sandtree said:

Andy_L said:

casper_gutman said:

Pretty standard for this not to be covered. My policy says it excludes "Any loss, damage, liability, cost or expense of any kind caused directly or indirectly by war, invasion or revolution."

I vaguely recall that in those sort of circumstances the Government is expected to act as the insurer of last resort. 

I'm not sure there is any governmental promise of that nature, indeed the War Damage Act 1965 (updated in 1995) removed any common law ability for someone to sue the government for damages caused by war to their property. If we look at the previous war impacting UK soil then a commission was setup to contribute towards repair costs and so its likely such a thing would be repeated but I'm not sure there is a legal obligation for them to do so and records from the time said the previous commission wasn't sufficient in monies paid.

For terrorism you have Pool Re in the UK and TRIA in the US but these are reinsurance schemes for insurers and so your primary policy must offer the cover still. One of the challenges of both these schemes is that it requires the event to be formally declared an act of terrorism and whilst the press, police and even MPs/PM may be calling them terrorist acts until the formal process does the reinsurance doesn't respond... some events have taken months to be formally declared.

I was thinking more custom & practice or national interest  than specific legislation. They need to rebuild the country after a war.

The War Damage Act only applies to damage done by the government (due to us bombing overseas assets of UK companies & then, post-war, being sued by the owners). You could always try suing the invader (didn't Kuwait do that to Iraq?) or the Gov could pursue the invader for reparations - depending on the state of things after a war (eg has the invader been repelled, counter-invaded & defeated)

Andy_L

casper_gutman said:

Andy_L said:

casper_gutman said:

Pretty standard for this not to be covered. My policy says it excludes "Any loss, damage, liability, cost or expense of any kind caused directly or indirectly by war, invasion or revolution."

I vaguely recall that in those sort of circumstances the Government is expected to act as the insurer of last resort. 

In the event of invasion or revolution: which Government? The outgoing one could promise what they liked, but would the incoming one feel bound by this?

A new government needs the country to function so, under the "you broke it you fix it" doctrine (Colin Powell?), they will have to do something about the damage to the country, assuming they wish to permanently control the country. If its just some smash & grab raid then chances are nobody (Gov/Ins Co/private individual) will have the cash to fix the problem

Alanp

I’m assuming you mean a conventional war, if nukes are involved there’d be no escaping anywhere in the world, just hope you didn’t survive the initial blast…