Buildings insurance leasehold flat any experts out there ?

alstemp

Hi MSE folks

I have a question regards buildings insurance for flats (I’m an owner) and if the communal insurance provider can be involved in issues that are a separate party’s fault (ie builder).  This is the first time I have dealt with anything like this and genuinely looking for advice, please no negative comments.

• Purchased flat to live in, in need of complete renovation.  Spent most of last year or so doing the renovation and spent thousands with builder.  
• Moved in and a couple of months after work was done I noticed some water damage which got worse and spread throughout flat. 
• Cause was pipe behind the shower that had not been connected properly
• My builder fixed the pipe and admitted responsibility and said will claim on his insurance.  Potentially thousands to correct all the damage that has been caused

Being a leasehold flat, buildings insurance is communal and managed by managing agent. 

My question is this:

- to avoid dealing with my builder's insurance company directly (Direct Line) can I work with the communal buildings insurance provider and instruct them to work with Direct Line instead?  Will the communal buildings insurance provider support this type of request?  

It was a painful process to establish the cause of the water issues and get the builder to accept responsibility and I don’t want to have to go all through this again.  Direct Line have already asked me for full details and description etc and I would prefer if it was handled insurance company to insurance company.

Many thanks for any advice on this.

eddddy

From what you say, the damage to your flat was caused by poor materials and or poor workmanship by your builder.

Buildings Insurance excludes cover for that - so I doubt that your buildings insurer would agree to get involved.


And just to clarify, your claim is against your builder - probably for Breach of Contract. Because your builder failed to perform their service with "Reasonable Care and Skill" - which is an implied contract term in all consumer contracts.

It's up to your builder to decide whether they make a claim on their professional indemnity insurance over this (assuming they have professional indemnity insurance, and it covers what has happened).


One problem with contacting your buildings insurer is that this issue is likely to be recorded as an "incident that may or may not result in a claim" - which could result in an increased premium in future years, even if they don't pay a claim.

alstemp

Hi @eddddy thanks for your reply and taking the time to share your advice .  

I will check the contract I had with the builder.  

But sounds like dealing with the builder's insurance provider will be a direct conversation with me and them.  Direct Line have already sent me a very long winded email which feels like they are asking me to prove the builder is at fault.  See excerpt below.  I guess I have no idea how to respond to this.  I can send them a copy of the specialist report that the water damage surveyor did otherwise it's down to photos I think.

I don't' understand why they can't just send round an assessor so I can show them first hand. 

Having an insurance provider on my side would have been lot easier to do this with.

Excerpt from Direct Line email:

We understand that you wish to pursue your claim directly with us as you do not have legal representation. If this is not correct, then please provide us with the name, address and telephone number for your legal representative, together with your claim reference number and we will then deal directly with them. 

Please note that for us to consider paying a liability claim made by a third party (such as yourself) you would need to establish that our insured did something wrong or failed to do something which resulted in the incident. This is called negligence. 

Just because an incident has occurred, does not mean that our insured has been negligent.

To allow us to commence our liability investigations we ask you to provide us with a full description of how the incident occurred and how/why you believe our insured was responsible for this incident. 

You also need to be aware that should liability be admitted, your claim will be settled on an indemnity, not on a new for old basis. This means that we will take into consideration how old the damaged item/s are and make the relevant deductions based on age/wear and tear etc. If you have buildings/contents insurance provided on a new for old basis, we strongly recommend that you notify your insurer of this incident in order that they may handle it on your behalf. If our insured are found to be liable, your insurer will seek to recover their outlay from us. 

Please note that liability investigations can take some time and it may be the case that liability is denied on behalf of our insured with no payment being made. With that in mind, please make sure that you do everything possible to resolve your situation and mitigate your losses whilst retaining the relevant evidence.