Thread: Building Insurance, am i covered?

House insurance,am I covered for uninsured damage caused by an insured incident?

Briefly.
Last autumn a very strong gust of wing nearly lifted my lightweight wooden consevatory off its foundations. I heard a loud bang and creaking noise coming from the conservatory. I checked and also went outside and could see no apparent damage.
A week later I noticed several of the double glazed windows had misted up which I guess was caused by the seals breaking possibly as a result of the panels distorting due to the gale. I resolved to replace these in the spring and not claim on my insurance.
Today I I noticed one or two isolated spots on the outside were showing signs of rot. I poked around with a screwdriver to find that the bottom of the panels were rotten due to ingress of water which must have been due to joints opening up when the conservatory distorted.
(I treated the conservatory last spring,it was sound and there was no rot anywhere)
My insurance policy states,
Covered: Loss or damage to the buildings by storm,very windy conditions...etc.
Not covered: Accidental damage...by deterioration...and wet rot.
So the damage was caused by the storm (covered) but not discovered till now with the resulting wet rot (not covered)
I've reported to my insurers but need to pre-empt their possibly declining my claim.
Any thoughts?

Probably hit you with "Damage has not occured from a one off incident but gradualy over a period of time" and becomes a maintenance issue.

Been there with the Halifax and still fighting it.

Good Luck

My general views behind this is that if we can determine that that one storm caused the damage then yes it would be covered - the insurance company should take it into account that the damage was not apparent.

The idea behind insurance is based on the "Proximate Cause" - what this means is that the insurance company must determine what the original cause of the damage was - in this case, you state it was a storm - theoretically that would be covered.