House Insurance won't pay out

Rhealea

We had a porch canopy roof outside our front door that was damaged by the wind in early January.

The builder advised taking it down immediaetly as it was leaning.

A letter came from the insurance yesterday to say as the wind didn't reach 40mph on the day in question then they won't pay out!

I remember the night and it sounded like the whole roof was going to blow away not just the canopy.

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks

jessjess_2

realistically no. complain but i doubt they will budge. most ins companies use weathernet, if conditions are not there then a claim will be repudiated.

gazza975526570

Rhealea wrote: »

We had a porch canopy roof outside our front door that was damaged by the wind in early January.

The builder advised taking it down immediaetly as it was leaning.

A letter came from the insurance yesterday to say as the wind didn't reach 40mph on the day in question then they won't pay out!

I remember the night and it sounded like the whole roof was going to blow away not just the canopy.

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks

If you get a cause of damage report from a builder/tradesman and this states the reason for the damage being storm they are likely to look at your claim again. As stated earlier they are likely to have used Weathernet which looks at the weather records in your local station - however it can depend how far your weather station is from your property.

Rhealea

gazza975526570 wrote: »

If you get a cause of damage report from a builder/tradesman and this states the reason for the damage being storm they are likely to look at your claim again. As stated earlier they are likely to have used Weathernet which looks at the weather records in your local station - however it can depend how far your weather station is from your property.

I sent the statement in with the quote for the replacement. Is there any way I can find out which weather station they've used and what the conditions were like?

Thanks

gazza975526570

Ask them - i cant see any reason why they wont tell you - who are you insured with? Some stations can be many miles away so as long as there are fairly strong winds or locally strong then you should be ok

Rhealea

Thanks for your reply.

Heath Lambert are dealing with the claim but the Insurance was done via Masterquote.

I am going to have a nice chat with them tomorrow! Bet they're glad they weren't open when the postie called yesterday!

mattymoo

If you enter your postcode on the BBC weather site it will tell you where the nearest data collection point is - the one the met office use to predict your local weather. Good chance it will be the same one the claims people looked at as well.

Rhealea

Thanks for your reply.

I've spoken to the lovely insurance co (NOT!) and they've advised me to email in disputing their decision!

We'll see what happens!

But don't know what else I can do if they come back and still don't change their decision?

Any ideas? Otherwise is it really worth having insurance at all if you can't make a claim?

money_maker_3

Yeah, I used to work for an insurance claim department, and if you can find a date that the wind did reach over 40mph within a month of the damage, you can sate that the damage was started on that date but was not noticed until the date you made the claim, or that the wind on the night you made the claim just made the already existing problem worse. I f you ask your builder he should be able to give you a letter to say that the problem could have been caused over more than one night.

Hope this helps

Good Luck:o

jessjess_2

money_maker wrote: »

Yeah, I used to work for an insurance claim department, and if you can find a date that the wind did reach over 40mph within a month of the damage, you can sate that the damage was started on that date but was not noticed until the date you made the claim, or that the wind on the night you made the claim just made the already existing problem worse. I f you ask your builder he should be able to give you a letter to say that the problem could have been caused over more than one night.

Hope this helps

Good Luck:o

Then the insurance company will throw the claim out! Insurance covers single incidents of storm, not gradual causes of damage.

money_maker_3

we paid out if it was within 30 days, but every insurance company is different. You can ask them and they will tell you if it is possible.