Refused insurance claim due to wear and tear / age (a ceiling has fallen down!)

SailorGirl71

Looking for advice please. Part of the ceiling in my 1910s built flat has fallen down. It's the original lathe and plaster ceiling. Insurance Company are refusing to cover the repair saying 'wear and tear' is not covered, neither are repairs due to 'age'. I can't figure out how a ceiling can be susceptible to 'wear and tear' and cannot find any reference to 'age' in my documents. Has anyone else encountered this? It's going to be a costly job and I'm not sure what to do next.... I'm wondering if getting my own loss assessor would be worth it? Thank you in advance.

sammyjammy

I agree with them, thats probably the original ceiling.  My landing has the same ceiling as you and should it suddenly collapse I wouldn't be looking to my insurance company to cover it.  All other ceilings were replaced at one stage or another but I've left that one due to access difficulties - hopefully I'll sell up before it decides to give up the ghost!

dunstonh

Looking for advice please. Part of the ceiling in my 1910s built flat has fallen down. It's the original lathe and plaster ceiling. 

We had a similar situation where cracks opened up in part of an 1850s ceiling.    Its an inevitable event as the materials used are not guaranteed forever.

I can't figure out how a ceiling can be susceptible to 'wear and tear' and cannot find any reference to 'age' in my documents. 

Hot and cold cycles, movement in the building, vibrations, and moisture can all impact, but you also get natural degradation.  

We fixed ours without insurance as it wasn't an insurable event.  It is just one of the joys of owning old properties.

MyRealNameToo

SailorGirl71 said:

Looking for advice please. Part of the ceiling in my 1910s built flat has fallen down. It's the original lathe and plaster ceiling. Insurance Company are refusing to cover the repair saying 'wear and tear' is not covered, neither are repairs due to 'age'. I can't figure out how a ceiling can be susceptible to 'wear and tear' and cannot find any reference to 'age' in my documents. Has anyone else encountered this? It's going to be a costly job and I'm not sure what to do next.... I'm wondering if getting my own loss assessor would be worth it? Thank you in advance.

Everything decays over time and nothing lasts forever. 

Do you have a link to your policy book? Wear and tear is a very standard exclusion along with slowly acting factors (which is another way of saying almost the same thing). 

So is the damage just to the ceiling or did it cause damage to other stuff? The other things MAY be covered under Accidental Damage even if the ceiling itself isnt. 

Your route would normally be a complaint followed by an escalation to the ombudsman but for that you are going to have to show what did cause it to collapse if you dont believe it was wear and tear. 

user1977

It doesn't need to be excluded, if it simply isn't part of the risks which are insured. Unless it's come down because of eg water coming through from above, I doubt it's going to be covered.

p00hsticks

If it wasn't due to 'wear and tear', then what do you think the collapse was due to ? 

Beeblebr0x

Age is one reason why I'm having a new roof on my 1930s house. If I loose the roof in a storm, I'd be up the creek if the insurers refused to meet my claim as there's no felt underneath the tiles.

Aretnap

The basic principle is that home insurance is there to protect you against unexpected one-off incidents that cause damage to your home. Fires, floods, storms etc etc. It doesn't cover routine maintenance, wear and tear, shonky workmanship or the fact that every few decades you are going to have to replace your roof, your ceiling or your central heating system - none of those things are unexpected one-off incidents and unfortunately they're just part of the joy of being a homeowner.

The main exception to the "unexpected one off event" principle is subsidence, which is arguably something that happens over time but is not an inevitable consequence of owning an old house for years and years. Most houses can stand for centuries without subsidence so it still falls into the unexpected category.

Most home insurance policies are written on what's called an "insured peril" basis. The policy contains a list of things that it covers - "perils" to use the jargon - fire, storm, flood, subsidence etc. If you want to claim then you have to say which peril you think caused the damage that you are claiming for. There's no actual need for a "wear and tear exclusion because your old ceiling caving in through sheer age doesn't come under any of the insured perils in the first place. The insurer might add a wear and tear exclusion to make the point triply clear, but the real reason the policy won't cover the damage is because it was not caused by any of the listed perils.

A few policies are written on what's called an all risk basis, which mean that they cover "bad stuff that happens to your home" in general, and then list some exceptions which are not covered. On that case the wording of the wear and tear exclusion is important. There's about a 99% chance that it will cover this situation I'm afraid so the outcome will be the same, but a key difference between the two types of policy is that where the cause of the damage is unclear with an insured peril policy the onus is on the policyholder to prove that it was caused by an insured peril; with an all risks policy the onus is on the insurer to prove that it was an excluded one.