Tripped over neighbour's EV cable and damaged it...any insurance cover either way?

FlyingSquirrel2

The clue is in the title, my partner tripped over our neighbour's charging cable yesterday and he isn't hurt, but the cable is. Neighbour just popped round to tell me it's £400 to repair/replace and the clear assumption is that he expects us to foot the entire bill. I mentioned insurance to him and he seemed mystified - clearly will not accept any liability, and of course we do not want to fall out with the neighbours, but I'm just trying to figure out if anybody (them or us) could claim on insurance, in which case what would it be (us/them? Home/car/personal liability?)

The context is important I expect:
Their charging port is on the side of their house, and their parking space is immediately outside their/our door. They run the cable across the path between their door and their car. They are the end of the terrace. 
We would have no real reason to walk across their path (as it leads to a gravelled area and then a fence, so isn't "on the way" to anything) and being a gated development nobody else crosses their path either, except that we use the common area to lock our bikes to the fence. They were happy for us to do so, but their cable goes across our route to where we keep our large family bike, so there was some tacit agreement between us that all was OK for us both to continue in this way.

I know that when we bought our own plug-in hybrid (and had to seek permission/pay a fortune to run concealed cables along the common wall, as per the same neighbour's request) we looked into insurance liability if somebody trips over your cable but that was all focussed on if that person got injured, rather than if the car/charger was damaged.
Does anyone have any experience of using insurance in a situation like this and who is legally liable for the damage? 

DullGreyGuy

Did you take photos of how the cable was (or at least after tripping on it)?
A plan of the layout would help (or photos)

Its fairly difficult to workout what the setup is and if you were, in legal terms, purely on their property or if its some common area or one you have a right to use beyond the tacit agreement on the bikes. 

Putting liability aside without the above information... it is likely they can claim off the AD/own vehicle section of their Motor insurance as it covers accessories but after considering the excess and the increased premiums for 3-5 years its unlikely worthwhile for them to do so. If it was deemed they'd taken reasonable enough precautions and it was you that was liable (fairly unlikely) then their insurers would attempt to recover the costs from you.

If you are deemed legally liable then your Home Contents insurance most likely would respond under the liability section.

FlyingSquirrel2

Thanks so much for your response; we don't have any photos but I've just sketched it out. No real reason to show our charging point to be honest! But I have tried to show the layout here. 
From what you're saying it sounds like the law would suggest liability is on them for the trailing cable - perhaps? 

Brie

So they are leaving a cable trailing across a path without any protection and think they aren't liable for it?  I would have expected they would at least put down one of those striped cable protectors over it to warn pedestrians of the trip hazard.  

FlyingSquirrel2

From our conversation they clearly don't believe they are liable.... my question really is whether they could/should claim on their insurance if we caused the damage?

The issue is of course that we don't want to fall out with them over this, but nor do we want to have to stump up £400 if we don't need to!!

DullGreyGuy

FlyingSquirrel2 said:

Thanks so much for your response; we don't have any photos but I've just sketched it out. No real reason to show our charging point to be honest! But I have tried to show the layout here. 
From what you're saying it sounds like the law would suggest liability is on them for the trailing cable - perhaps? 

Wherever the cable is they have a duty of care, the level of the duty depends on where it is... the more people that would have legitimate access to the area the higher the duty is. You cannot avoid it even by just having it on your own property as people like postman have a legal obligation to come onto your property to deliver your mail (in most cases). You state its a common pathway so presumably at least you and possibly others have a legal right to use it and so a higher duty of care on them than if it was all within their property.

My base assumption would be its their responsibility to make sure people dont trip on it, this could be making sure its brightly coloured, putting it in a cable protector, raise it over the path rather than have it on the path, put warning signs up. Assuming they've done none of these then I'd certainly be arguing its their fault.

If they've done some things to help but not gone as far as a proper cable protector and you admit you were watching a video on your phone as you were walking along rathre than watching where you were going then it could get into the space of split liability (though it may be more contributory negligence which is irrelevant as there is no injury).

For the sake of neighbourly relations it may be worth going 50/50 on it but suggest/insist they buy a proper cable protector as next time there may be an injury and Motor insurers are increasingly putting in clauses to exclude trip claims from EV cables.

CSI_Yorkshire

FlyingSquirrel2 said:

my question really is whether they could/should claim on their insurance if we caused the damage?

Yes.  It's their property that is damaged.

If the insurance company thinks you are liable  (which in my opinion is unlikely given the evidence here) then they could attempt to recover the costs from you afterwards.

FlyingSquirrel2

wow this is all extremely helpful, thank you so much for taking the time to reply! 

theoretica

When your charging cable was being discussed did they put anything in writing about it being a trip hazard?  That would show they were aware of cables being a trip hazard and relevant precautions.

Sea_Shell

I'm assuming the cable must have been pretty taut across the path to have been damaged by someone tripping on it.

How is it damaged?  Ripped out the socket?  Was there no slack?

FlyingSquirrel2

theoretica said:

When your charging cable was being discussed did they put anything in writing about it being a trip hazard?  That would show they were aware of cables being a trip hazard and relevant precautions.

Very good point, though I think this was discussed with the company who manage the building, rather than with the neighbours directly, but we were definitely asked  to provide this information from our insurance company.  When the neighbours installed their charger we don't think they had to ask for permission as they were running the cable directly from their home to their space - plus they were early adopters! The cable predates us as their neighbours...