help !!! with barclays home insurance

[suelee]

hello, first time here, can anyone help please, three weeks ago my roof lost some of its tiles, due to the high winds and heavy rain, thus causing damage to my spare room and landing, asprea turned up two days ago and said we needed a new roof, today i received a call to say that they would repair the spare room and landing but not the roof as it was ware and tear to the roof, the man never even went on to the roof his excuse was that it was unsafe, he never even went in to the loft, just looked up from outside, we have a three story house !, has any one had similar problems, more bad weather and high wind comming our way tonite

[revolting peasant]

Hi Suelee and welcome to CAG

I would be inclined to pursue this with the insurer but there are a couple of questions I have.

Firstly, how old is your house, secondly, are you sure about the date on which the damage to the roof occurred and third, have you ever claimed for storm damage to your roof before.

Insurance companies keep very accurate records of weather conditions but there is no doubt it has been a bit breezy in Kent recently. One thing they will look at closely is reported damage to surrounding properties as it would be a bit odd if yours was the only one damaged in the immediate vicinity.

If you can give us a bit more detail, we may be able to help more but personally I think you have a case to argue.

[suelee]

our house is old dont know what age, have had no problems before with the roof untill we noticed the water dripping through the ceiling on tues 5th feb, we went into the loft and found that there was a hole in it , where the tiles had slipped, we had heavey rain before and it was all fine up there, have never ever claimed on house insurance since buying the house in 96, havent asked any one else in street if they had problems, we had high winds and heavy rain, and more to come

[Darkangelsdelite]

Hi,

I think the problem here is that you cant say to the insurer that the damage was defiantly caused by a storm on a specific date date (which R.P has quite rightly pointed out that the insurers can check with the met office etc to make sure there was bad weather on the day in question).
What the insurers are doing is essentially correct in that they have agreed to pay out for the damage that was caused by the water leaking in (generally covered under "escape of water" on most home policies) but not the roof itself as wear and tear is a general exclusion on most home policies. Other than the advice already given (which i agree with) your best bet is to complain to the insurers and stand your ground to see if they back down. Either that, or try and work out when the damage was likely to have occurred and then go from there.

Hope this helps and keep us informed....

DA

[suelee]

hi thanks for your reply, we had storm force gales in dover a few days before they closed the port due to the gale force winds it was only when we had the heavy rain that it came in and we noticed the ceilings were damaged

[Darkangelsdelite]

Well that's definitely a good place to start your argument, there is no way they can deny that the port was closed due to bad weather and they cant deny that there was heavy rain straight after either. As i said, i think its just going to be a case of standing your ground and taking your complaint as far as you can until they decide to back down.

DA