Subsidence Insurance claim

Mikeosuk

Hi

My 91 year old mum's house has has subsidence issues in the past.

She has made 2 insurance claims because of this in 2019 and 2022.

She was previously insured through Zurich Insurance, who undertook work to remedy issues caused by subsidence.

After the second claim, on renewal Zurich informed mum that they were no longer dealing with home insurance and mum had to find another insurer. She found a new insurer through a broker calked Howden Insurance. She has not had a problem since the last claim was completed in 2023.

Mum has just discovered more cracks in her wall and contacted the broker Howden Insurance to report these. The broker advised that the new insurer would not take on this new claim because it was connected to the previous claims made through Zurich. They told her to contact the previous insurer as they "have a duty" to deal with problems resulting from this.

Can anyone confirm if this is correct?

If Zurich Insurance no longer deal with home insurance, how do we contact them about this problem.

Or should we persist with the new insurer and make a claim through them?

Thanks for any advice.

Mike

Famau

This may not help, but my mother's house suffered from blocked drains owing to root incursion. The insurer stated that the issue had developed before it started providing cover and referred her to the previous insurer. To my surprise, the previous insurer accepted the claim. So I think Zurich may be on the hook for this, and contacting their head office is perhaps the best starting point. Good luck.

Annemos

I am sorry to read this. Wishing you the best in getting to the bottom of it.

If the new damage is in exactly the same place ……. then Zurich should indeed be dealing with this, as it might be a reoccurrence of the same problem as before …… same cause and same place and the possibility of an insufficient remedy having been tried before to deal with that cause and/or failing repairs.

The Financial Ombudsman expects that any repairs done during a Subsidence Claim, must be Effective and Lasting.

It is never really stated in black and white, just how long that "Lasting" is. But I have seen FOS cases from 3 to 10 years, where the subsidence remedy and/or repairs had possibly failed. In these cases, the Insurance Company was required to do new investigations to ascertain what exactly was happening. (What is the cause, has the previous remedy been ineffective and have the previous repairs failed?)

I don't know Zurich, but I have found this on a Search. And you also might be able to use the same details in the old Policy Booklets. They cannot walk away from claims, even if they have left the market. They must re-open the claim to investigate.

https://www.zurich.co.uk/about-us/contact-us

Just for clarification. If the old claim was tree root damage, but the new claim is something wrong with the drainage pipes, for example, then that scenario is able to be treated as 2 separate and different claims. And if that drain issue had now taken place under the new Insurance policy, then the new Insurer would have to deal with it.

Also, if the new damage is in a new area, that would have to be investigated to see if it is indeed linked to the old claim, or if it is actually a new event.

Hope this helps.

Mikeosuk

Thank you to Famau and to Annemos for your extremely helpful comments. The current damage does seem to be in the same place as where the earlier damage was. Our next task is to dig out the old insurance paperwork for Zurich and find their details and get in contact with them about the issue. Thanks again.