Landlord insurance claim rejected

IamWood

Dear All,

I had a rental property and never claimed any insurance before. I changed landlord insurance provider in early September 2022. When I did the regular inspection in mid-September 2022 (11 days after taking the new insurance) and found some severe water damage in the bathroom (which was caused by the water leaks under the floorboard). My tenants claimed they never noticed. Anyway, I filed an insurance claim. I just learned that my insurance provider had rejected my claim, saying the water leak happened before I took the insurance with them, according to the photo I sent.

Is this normal? I would expect them to claim the money from my previous insurer if this is the case, as I have already provided the information in my claim form. Should I file a complaint or try my luck with my former insurer?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

dunstonh

Is this normal?

Yes

I would expect them to claim the money from my previous insurer if this is the case, as I have already provided the information in my claim form. Should I file a complaint or try my luck with my former insurer?

You should claim on the old policy as that is the one that was in force when the event happened.   However, don't be surprised if they check to see if it happened after the policy ended.

DullGreyGuy

IamWood said:

I would expect them to claim the money from my previous insurer if this is the case, as I have already provided the information in my claim form. 

That would effectively you being suing yourself

This isnt a case of dual insurance where the insurers agree amoungst themselves on how to share costs but you've simply claimed off the wrong policy and the loss is from before the inception of the policy. You therefore need to claim on the other policy.

Have you worked out how the damage has happened? Gradually acting causes are often excluded so it may not be valid claim on the older policy either depending on the problem.

Aretnap

An insurance policy typically covers you for damage which occurs while the policy was in force. It doesn't cover you for damage which was already there when you bought the policy. Your claim is against the policy which was in force when the damage actually occurred.

This can make life difficult if the damage has occurred gradually over a period of months and it's not clear which policy you should claim on, or if it took place over more than one policy. However as above you will often find that damage which occurs gradually over a long period is not covered by insurance anyway.

Smithcom

IamWood said:

Dear All,

I had a rental property and never claimed any insurance before. I changed landlord insurance provider in early September 2022. When I did the regular inspection in mid-September 2022 (11 days after taking the new insurance) and found some severe water damage in the bathroom (which was caused by the water leaks under the floorboard). My tenants claimed they never noticed. Anyway, I filed an insurance claim. I just learned that my insurance provider had rejected my claim, saying the water leak happened before I took the insurance with them, according to the photo I sent.

Is this normal? I would expect them to claim the money from my previous insurer if this is the case, as I have already provided the information in my claim form. Should I file a complaint or try my luck with my former insurer?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

The above comment from Aretnap is correct.

You definitely need to make a claim against the previous policy, although, there is a chance that your current insurer will also need to be involved if some of the damage occurred during the 11 days.   But it sounds like the previous insurer is the starting place, as the bulk of the damage likely happened on their watch.

It's not ideal that it's taken 6 months for you to get to this stage, but hopefully the previous insurer will be reasonable about it

Good luck

SC

IamWood

Thanks for all the advice.