Home Insurance Claim Refused

Tiger_Tony

Last Sunday, as my wife was in the garden and I was in the sitting room, we heard an enormous bang and the sound of breaking glass. We investigated and discovered that in our ensuite at the far end of the house, the shower door had exploded and the glass had shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. The floor was covered to about 3 inches deep with glass. It is a good job we were not in the room at the time as it could have been fatal.

We are pensioners and were both extremely shocked. We have made no claim on house and contents insurance for about twelve years but when we rang to make a claim (Policy Expert who use Trinity Claims to handle claims) we could not initially make a claim because Policy Expert were closed for the weekend and they had supplied incorrect information to the claims company - i.e. my policy document showed my correct date of birth but Policy Expert had transferred an incorrect date of birth to Trinity.

So I waited until Monday to make a claim. I was asked to explain what had happened to the shower door and I told them exactly what I have written above - we weren't there so could not know how it happened. They turned down the claim because we could not give them a reason for the breakage so they decided it must have been wear and tear which isn't covered. We don't know how old the shower door was as we only moved to the house last year but it appeared to be in excellent order.

Because they insisted on a reason I then told them the only reason I could think of that might have caused it - we have been getting very large numbers of industrial size tractors (the wheels alone are about 10-12 feet high) and trailers full of rubble going past recently. These shake the floor of the bungalow. But I was told that was ridiculous because many houses have passing traffic.

If we'd been careless with a hammer we would have been covered. By always being careful we lose out! I know insurance companies have a bad reputation for turning down claims but this was unbelievable.

lisyloo

On the practical side have you looked at replacement cost?
if you claim you have to pay an excess plus you lose any “no claims” discount and you get penalised for claiming.
if it’s low hundreds then it’s simply not worth claiming as your premiums over the next few years will just go up.

you can make a formal complaint and sometimes that yields results
They could still refuse your claims and say get a professional report and if it’s covered that report will be refunded.

they are also correct (and you about the hammer) that gradual causes like wear & tear or ageing are not covered. You’re covered for fire, flood, accidental damage (if you have it), so without a reason it’s not obvious whether it would be covered or not.

it seems odd to me both to have a glass door and one that isn’t shatterproof.
also spontaneous explosion sounds odd (I’m not saying it didn’t happen just that it’s an unusual case).

TELLIT01

lisyloo said:

it seems odd to me both to have a glass door and one that isn’t shatterproof.
also spontaneous explosion sounds odd (I’m not saying it didn’t happen just that it’s an unusual case).

There is nothing in the least odd about glass shower screens / doors.  We have one on our bath.  The OP has also said it shattered into tiny pieces which is what they are designed to do, rather than have large glass shards flying around.

user1977

Tiger_Tony said:

the shower door had exploded and the glass had shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. The floor was covered to about 3 inches deep with glass. It is a good job we were not in the room at the time as it could have been fatal.

No, the thousands of tiny pieces would not have killed you (unless you ate them, maybe). The whole point of toughened glass is that it shatters into small, relatively safe pieces, rather than big sharp shards which would potentially be fatal. That's why it's used in things like glass doors and car windows.

Sandtree

Tiger_Tony said:

Because they insisted on a reason I then told them the only reason I could think of that might have caused it - we have been getting very large numbers of industrial size tractors (the wheels alone are about 10-12 feet high) and trailers full of rubble going past recently. These shake the floor of the bungalow. But I was told that was ridiculous because many houses have passing traffic.

Normal home insurance is written on an "insured perils" basis which basically means there are a list of perils (fire, theft, accidental damage etc) and for you to have cover you'd need to be able to prove the damage was caused by one of these perils.

You've claimed it was vibrations and certainly I'm not aware of a home insurance policy that covers vibration. 

As to the event itself, was in a previous client's offices one day and the glass walls to 3 meeting rooms in a line spontaneously exploded with no one being anywhere near them, not near to industrial tractors etc. They'd been there for a couple of years but it was determined there was a defect with them (and 4 others that didn't explode) and it was just one of those things... were your's similar unfortunately workmanship/manufacturing issues are equally excluded from home insurance.

Tiger_Tony

TELLIT01 said:

lisyloo said:

it seems odd to me both to have a glass door and one that isn’t shatterproof.
also spontaneous explosion sounds odd (I’m not saying it didn’t happen just that it’s an unusual case).

There is nothing in the least odd about glass shower screens / doors.  We have one on our bath.  The OP has also said it shattered into tiny pieces which is what they are designed to do, rather than have large glass shards flying around.

Since our experience we have already heard of five different friends who have experienced the same thing.

lisyloo

Thanks for the info. Consider me educated. I’ll stick with plastic ones.

Annemos

Ohhhh nooooo. Yet another thing to sit at the back of one's mind as a potential worry. What a scary thing to happen. I would have a heart attack if I was in the shower and it happened! 

Here is a little article.     

https://roomtorooms.com/blogs/news/shower-doors-exploding-how-to-prevent-a-disaster

MalMonroe

lisyloo said:

On the practical side have you looked at replacement cost?
if you claim you have to pay an excess plus you lose any “no claims” discount and you get penalised for claiming.
if it’s low hundreds then it’s simply not worth claiming as your premiums over the next few years will just go up.

you can make a formal complaint and sometimes that yields results
They could still refuse your claims and say get a professional report and if it’s covered that report will be refunded.

they are also correct (and you about the hammer) that gradual causes like wear & tear or ageing are not covered. You’re covered for fire, flood, accidental damage (if you have it), so without a reason it’s not obvious whether it would be covered or not.

it seems odd to me both to have a glass door and one that isn’t shatterproof.
also spontaneous explosion sounds odd (I’m not saying it didn’t happen just that it’s an unusual case).

Not all insurance claims have an excess to pay. I've just claimed for accidental damage to my TV and there's no excess. My Aviva contents insurance policy costs me 98 pence a week included in my rent as a council tenant. Neither have I lost any 'no claims discount'. Over the 16 years I've been here I've made 3 claims for which I've not had to pay an excess and my premium's always been 98p. I think it's a fantastic bargain. One that may only be available to council tenants? I really don't know. But I do know that with my three claims there have been no penalties. 

Unfortunately, a glass shower door shattering is not an odd occurrence. I thought it must have been really scary so googled it to see if there had been any other instances. There have. Lots. General consensus is that it's something to do with temperature changes over time causing glass to weaken. But nobody seems to know for sure.