Home insurance rejected claim due to wear and tear

Costalot123

My mother in law is having an insurance issue. 

3 story house, discovered damp on the ground floor of the property, tiles in kitchen were damp. Went round and pulled the fridge out as couldn’t work out where the damp was coming from and the floor basically gave way beneath us. 

Called insurance, they said it’s a leak in fridge causing damage to the floor, although no water was pooling on the floor round the fridge so never made sense.
at the same time noticed on 1st floor behind some floor to ceiling cupboard there was mould on the wall, impossible to see unless you pull the cupboards out.
next thing we know kitchen ceiling on ground floor half collapses. 

Realised at that point it’s definitely not a fridge problem. There is a flat roof sort of above to the left of the kitchen but the roof looks clear and is well maintained. 

Insurance comes out, leak assessor come out… say that there’s “a little problem with the flashing” on the roof, ie 3 floors up. Roof is always kept clear and no way of noticing this from the ground. 

Insurance have rejected claim due to it being gradual deterioration.
is there anything we can do? Major damage to kitchen floor and kitchen ceiling as well as mould and obvious damp on first floor.
thanks 

DullGreyGuy

You can complain but insurers do not cover gradual deterioration, wear & tear, defective design/workmanship. You would need to pin the damage to the roof to a sudden event to allow for the subsequent damage to possibly be covered. 

Sometimes if roof damage isn't covered then AD may pickup the subsequent damage anyway but that tends to be limited to the one off big rain storm that happens after a few tiles slip not the cumulative impact over many months (or longer)

Sleepysophie

@DullGreyGuy from my experience, the insurance company would only blame the "sudden damage" if there had been a storm to wear and tear / neglect which made the sudden damage more likely to happen. This is my experience anyway. 

DullGreyGuy

Sleepysophie said:

@DullGreyGuy from my experience, the insurance company would only blame the "sudden damage" if there had been a storm to wear and tear / neglect which made the sudden damage more likely to happen. This is my experience anyway. 

Yes, which is basically a paraphrasing of what I said