Average wind speed- help please!

[Zingari]

Get it notified to the Insurers as soon as poss - don't give them an excuse to rely on notification clauses etc..

 

Good luck!

will do 

[Smudge]

"Act of God" is an annoyingly leading phrase which is used in insurance law as a defence to a liability claim.  It means you can't blame the other party, it was something they had no control over.

 

As a rule, in order to claim against someone, you have to establlish that they have been negligent - ie that they owned you a duty of care and did something they would reasonably be expected to not to do (or failed to do something they would be expected to do) which then resulted in injury or damage to you.

 

In this case, you can't really blame the person whose roof blew off.  It was not their fault.  It was caused by extraordinary weather conditions, rather than by any negligent act or omission by the house owner.  A claim against the house owner in the civil court would fail. 

 

Whilst I sympathise, I think it is correct that you can't blame people (and sue them) for stuff they have no control over.

 

That is why, as the owner of property (a car) which has been damaged by storm, you have to claim under your car's own damage insurance or bear the loss yourself.

 

Sorry.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. he I and I were members of the same Round Table and he was a decent bloke so suing or asking for payment was never on the cards.

[Smudge]

Aha. 

 

Sewage pipes are given different consideration from the rest of the building. Domestic policies cover "accidental damage to service pipes and cables" and, for some reason, a more lenient position is taken with this peril.  

 

To quote from the Chartered Insurance Loss Adjusters textbook:

 

 

 

 

In short, whilst it goes against the usual principles of insurance, Insurers will accept claims for pipes like the one you decribed.

 

Winner.

 

   

Hmm I read this and didn't think there was much hope for him

[Vacamion]

Hmm I read this and didn't think there was much hope for him

 

 

I read the stuff in the link as pretty much counting the number of ways in which FOS won't let insurers walk away from pitch fibre pipe claims, even where they change their policy wording to try to get out of them.

 

I was speaking to a senior technical guy in the UK's largest loss adjusting firm about this very issue two weeks ago.

 

Unless there is a specific pirch fibre pipes exclusion (pretty rare) or the insurers can demonstrate that the pipes failed in some other way than being delaminated by water (in the aforementioned "slow motion accidental damage" - again, pretty unlikely) FOS won't allow Insurers to decline the claim.

 

Even where there is a specific pitch fibre pipes exclusion, FOS won't let Insurers rely on it unless it was prominently outlined in the policy prospectus and "drawn to the attention of" the Insured.

 

Bottom line - it's pretty hard for Insurers to decline these claims.

 

They might well try to do so in the 1st instance.  If they do, they will most likely be overturned by their own CEO dept (for fear of setting costly precedents with FOS) or by FOS. 

[jgtuk]

Depends on the policy. I know my doesn't. Mine started leaking the aame night as Borobat home last season.

Of course, BUT... If you have a flat roof, then surely you should insure it as a flat roof and you will be covered for damage in the same way as a traditional roof. One of my properties is listed and has a Mansard style roof (approx. 80% of it is flat). I insured it as a flat roof, the only clause is that I have to show an annual report (roofer climbs up and gives it the once over) to verify condition.

[Zingari]

Depends on the policy. I know my doesn't. Mine started leaking the aame night as Borobat home last season.

Maybe i'm missing something obvious  here , but what happened at the Borobat Home ?

Was it a disaster or something , were the Borobats OK ? 

 

I am only joking 

[Father Ted]

Do you still need this? For Leicester, basic wind velocity for Leicester is 22m/s, you then have to apply an altitude correction depending upon your location.

 

Source: Structural Eurocode Chapter 1

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

As you can imagine I was aggrieved that I was the one who ended up paying for the damage. 

 

Friend or no friend, I'd have ****ed his house right up if he didn't pay, then tell him "God made me do it"

[Zingari]

Get it notified to the Insurers as soon as poss - don't give them an excuse to rely on notification clauses etc..

 

Good luck!

i've just been on the phone to them and they will agree to repair any damage that may occur in the future as it is now on record  ,

they are also going to send me a letter verifying the conversation that it has been agreed and for me to keep it with the policy. 

thanks again for all your advice and help