john banks

Neighbour's roof tile came off last night and hit the bonnet of my wife's Golf. The roof is in quite good condition being quite recent, but tiles do occasionally come off and I've pointed them out to my neighbour before.

He is phoning his buildings insurance and is being quite reasonable as expected.

I wondered if anyone had any experience of this sort of incident and who was likely to be liable.

davegtt

I should think you wont have any trouble with his house insurance paying out to be honest.

Good luck

David Lock

Won't he be liable under his "Liability to public" cover. Most policies have some huge amount - mine is £2,000,000, so that should cover a dent dl

DCI Gene Hunt

£2,000,000 ?? your roof must need some work

davegtt

Thinking about it, you dont live up the road from chocolate_o_brian do you? It'll teach you to park outside his house

Chrisgr31

The key here is that you have pointed out that tiles come off to him before.

His building insurance company is likely to claim that it was an unforeseeable event, and therefore they are not liable (Act of God - no one to blame). Whereupon you point out that you have advised him of this before and therefore he has been negligent in not having had his roof looked at.

David Lock

According to Scoobynet God doesn't exist.......

DCI Gene Hunt

According to SN horses hunt foxes in the wild

davegtt

According to SN moderators racism doesnt exsist and can be deleted from the earth

speedking

Scoobynet case law.

fast bloke

Insurance companies don't use the "act of God" clause any more.

His building insurance will pay to have your damage repaired regardless of how many roof tiles have come off in the past. If they had landed on his car the insurance company would probably refuse liability on the grounds of contributory negligence

The Snug Rhino

They dont?

what would scooby do

No it's the cows that hunt foxes

Chrisgr31

Best tell my insurance company as they used it when saying they had been unsuccessful with claiming off my neighbour for a fire!

WayneG555

iTrader: (1)

Hey there mate, I'm trying to claim at the minute as back in January my neighbors fence blew into my car. I have sent of numerous letters and today have finally received a letter saying they wont pay as its an act of god!!! But hopefully in you case, as it has have already been pointed out, you mentioned the tiles to him already so they cant say he couldn't have foreseen it!!! My only advice is phone up your insurance and get them to send a letter to his insurance company, seemed to get a quicker response for me.

Wayne

brumdaisy

so how come some building insurance policies cover storm damage and some dont? Mine does as I found out recently, but then I always assumed that all companies did?

robby

Read a brief bit in auto express today about a wall falling onto some1s car causing 11k worth of damage - insurers are saying they wont pay out as it was an act of god

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

damn there onto me

Dracoro

If they say "act of god", surely you can take them to court, laugh at them trying to prove that there's a god.

LG John

LMFAO

PG

John,
Contact Welcome to HelpHire Group PLC and see if they can help. My uncle refers people to them through his bodyshop and I have had the need to use them a couple of times. Excellent service. Not sure if they will be able to help in this case but no harm in trying.

Paul

Chrisgr31

I think they all cover storm damage to your own property, but not any consequential damage to a third party's property.

nathanb

iTrader: (1)

This is true. A ride tile fell on my car a few months back. I phoned the house insurance 1st and they weren't interested. I was told car insurance would have to cover it. When I asked what if it had happened to someone else's car they said it would be car insurance also.

Lets hope this guy is still so helpful when he has to pay for it himself!!

RUDDY

whats with all this act of god bollocks???
an act of nature maybe. bloody god! pull the other one!
id be livid if they said that to me!
if it happend on christmas eve they would say it was an act of santa!i

john banks

It was actually the roof of our house where the slate came off - there is a part that is joined on. The house is rented and the landlord's building insurance doesn't cover damage to the car. The landlord is paying about 75% of it and we're paying 25%. Didn't want to fall out over it, could have been better/worse either way.

andythejock01wrx

Being an insurance claims advisor, found it quite interesting hearing people's views on this matter.

As above, occupiers liability insurance is normally found under the contents policy as opposed to to the buildings policy.

It's highly unlikley that an insurer would accept that their policyholder (the householder) had been liable, unless it could be shown that the occupier had failed in his duty to maintain the roof.

Nice to see it's sorted out now in any case.

john banks

It does seem odd that you're insuring for the UNPREDICTABLE - otherwise you wouldn't need insurance! Yet they won't pay when part of the roof lands on a car.

andythejock01wrx

Thing is that the insurance (ie your car insurance ) would pay for it. Unfortunately common law/precedents won't allow you to recover the cost from your neighbour unless he can be shown to be negligent.