Commercial insurance claim-flooding-rejected

[sigkap87]

My DH owns a sunbed shop. With the rain in the winter his basement became flooded, he lost a sunbed (the entire basement destroyed) and lost business as a result of the lost sunbed.

 

He has recently put in a claim with his insurance company for loss of earnings and loss of sunbed (the other damage being claimed through his landlords building insurance). The insurance broker has now responded saying he is 30m from a river and to provide a response to why his policy states he is at least 250m from a river. DH says his broker is the one who sorted his insurance out for him and he signed nothing stating he is more than 250m from a river. In addition to this, the flooding that he incurred was not from the river, but from the excessive amounts of rain.

 

What does he need to do? I have told him to contact an insurance assessor to help him. Is this right?

[dacouc]

He needs to see the proposal form he "signed" or the statement of fact either of which should show whether or not he was asked about the river

[unclebulgaria67]

Your DH would have signed an Insurance application and he would have received a copy of the declaration information/assumptions that was used to issue the policy. He needs to look carefully through the documents he has to see what is noted.

 

Then he needs to start a complaint in writing with the brokers about the Insurance arrangement and how he was not made aware of the assumption that the shop was not within 250m of a river. It may be relevant to the underwriters of the policy, because they may not have provided the policy cover, had they known about the river. Even if it is not relevant to the actual claim event, which may be water table flooding, it will still be a problem.

 

Unfortunately with commercial insurance, you cannot use the FOS, as that is for the public with standard personal type policies e.g Home, Car Insurance, life cover. If the brokers/insurance underwriters are not helpful, your DH will have to seek legal advice from a Solicitors, with a view of taking it to court if necessary.

[unclebulgaria67]

Another possibility is to take action against the landlord. Has the basement flooded before ? If the landlord let the shop knowing that the shop had a flooding risk, then they may be liable. It may be worth speaking to nearby shop owners to ask them whether they are aware of the shop having flooded previously.

[BankFodder]

What is a DH?

 

I suggest that you write to your insurance broker in exactly the same terms as you have laid out above, explaining that you made no claims relating to distance from the river and that in any event that the distance from the river in this case has not affected the risk at all because the flooding was caused by rain and that the river did not burst its banks.

 

Make it clear to them that you consider that they are simply trying to avoid their proper liability and the you will be making a complaint as far as the ombudsman if necessary.

 

Also remind them of their duty under ICOBS and that you are prepared to cause trouble if they do not meet their responsibilities under the insurance policy.

 

Come back here when you have a response

[unclebulgaria67]

What is a DH?

 

 

Make it clear to them that you consider that they are simply trying to avoid their proper liability and the you will be making a complaint as far as the ombudsman if necessary.

 

 

Can't use the FOS, as it is a commerical insurance policy.

[dacouc]

Can't use the FOS, as it is a commerical insurance policy.

 

A micro-enterprise which I suspect the OP is can use the Ombudsman.

 

A micro-enterprise is a business with less than 2m euro turnover and less than ten employees