Late Home Insurance Claim

khublaikhan

Hi All,

Looking for advice.

Bit of background:

1. On Wednesday 11th of Jan 2023 there was an extreme amount of continuous wind and rain in my area, the Met Office and local news announced we were to expect a 16 hr deluge of heavy rain and high winds.
   
2. The next day, I noticed a plasticy sheet in my garden and realised it was from my roof, which is a slanting roof but also has a front and back, flat roofed, dorma each - the plastic sheeting was from the back dorma and somehow came off during the bad weather
   
3. I frantically chased around some roofers and luckily one came and fitted the sheet back within a day or so (13th Jan)
4. Fast forward to last week, a neighbour across the road (who has a good view of my front dorma from his house) told me the sheeting on top of my front dorma had unravelled and that the problem started back during the severe weather early Jan but has steadily gotten worse. He said the sheeting had unravelled ever so slightly back then and has been peeling slowly off ever since
   
5. He told me that he had noticed a roofer up there, back at that time, assumed we were aware of the issue and thought nothing of it. Obviously, neither my roofer nor myself realised the front dorma problem and just dealt with the back dorma sheeting.
   
6. I have been blissfully ignorant of the problem,  I have no way of seeing the tops of my dormas, unless I am in the attic rooms of my neighbours house, and the neighbour thought I was aware, since he saw a roofer up there abouts when it started - until last week when he finally realised I mustn't have known about it
7. In all that time there has been no leaks, but I am assuming the worse and water would have been creeping in
8. I am also actively seeking a roofer to assess the issue, but this has proven extremely difficult so far
   
9. I am not sure how much the cost of this is going to be, NOT CHEAP is the default assumption

I want to claim on my home insurance but not sure what the rules are around this sort of stuff - never, ever made a claim on insurance - I have checked my policy and it covers storm damage, and they are aware that my house has flat-roofed dormas, but since it is from back in January I have a feeling they will find a way to reject??

Asking for advice and if I need to consider anything before I make the claim?

Thanks in advance

DullGreyGuy

If you had the back one done already why dont you have an idea of the cost for the front one?

Are you intending to claim for just the front one or hoping to also claim for the already repaired back one?

There are two issues with late reported claims.... 1 is proving all the damage happened when you said it did rather than it being a series of events etc which you've tried to pin on the prior event and 2 is that insurers will challenge any further damage caused by late reporting of damage (think the damaged car panel that starts rusting and goes from a pull and retouch to a whole new panel as a consequence)

There are further complexities in claiming for something already repaired where the insurer cannot inspect the damage and confirm its consistent with the circumstances and that the quote was reasonable.

It can also be worth checking your policy's definition of Storm and then the local weather records for the date to make sure what actually happened hit the levels required. Predictions dont always come true.