House insurance renewed - claim on 2nd day

House insurance renewed - claim on 2nd day

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Discussion

Countdown

Original Poster:

40,278 posts

198 months

Tuesday 21st May
quotequote all
I renewed my house insurance a few weeks ago. it actually ran out on the 14th but for some unknown reason i renewed it on the 18th.

Completely coincidentally (I genuinely had no idea) but Ive found out today that the sewer pipe under the garage has collapsed. "Luckily" I can stop the kids from using the particular bathroom which feeds into that sewer pipe so the damage shouldn't get worse. However my question / concern is - will the repairs be covered by the House Insurance?

1. the Ins Policy says all underground pipes are covered
2. I've never had a household insurance claim in 25+ years

My concern is that it looks dodgy claiming within 2 days of the new policy inception (even though I had a policy previously). I can't see any "exclusion period" in the Policy paperwork - how likely are the chances of the InsCo telling me to take a long walk off a short pier?

r3g

3,444 posts

26 months

Tuesday 21st May
quotequote all
Countdown said:
I renewed my house insurance a few weeks ago. it actually ran out on the 14th but for some unknown reason i renewed it on the 18th.

Completely coincidentally (I genuinely had no idea) but Ive found out today that the sewer pipe under the garage has collapsed. "Luckily" I can stop the kids from using the particular bathroom which feeds into that sewer pipe so the damage shouldn't get worse. However my question / concern is - will the repairs be covered by the House Insurance?

1. the Ins Policy says all underground pipes are covered
2. I've never had a household insurance claim in 25+ years

My concern is that it looks dodgy claiming within 2 days of the new policy inception (even though I had a policy previously). I can't see any "exclusion period" in the Policy paperwork - how likely are the chances of the InsCo telling me to take a long walk off a short pier?
You have answered your own question. I'm not sure what answer you are expecting from randoms on the internet who are not privy to the T&Cs of your house insurance policy. What did your house insurance company say when you rang them?

Countdown

Original Poster:

40,278 posts

198 months

Tuesday 21st May
quotequote all
I was wondering if exclusion periods were a common thing on house insurance. I think my boiler cover had a 15 day “no claims allowed” period.

Probably just being paranoidsmile

Glassman

22,667 posts

217 months

Tuesday 21st May
quotequote all
You're covered from the moment of policy inception.

dalenorth

833 posts

169 months

Tuesday 21st May
quotequote all
We specialise in home insurance among other insurances and it’s correct that you are covered from inception and there is no reason for them to refuse your claim.

Countdown

Original Poster:

40,278 posts

198 months

Tuesday 21st May
quotequote all
Thanks both. thumbup

alscar

4,421 posts

215 months

Wednesday 22nd May
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As regards exclusions you are probably thinking of those Homeserve ( others are available ) type policies for additional coverages which do usually contain exclusion policies of a few weeks although not if they are a renewal.
A standard insurance policy is live with full coverage the day it is effective from.
You say it renewed on the 14th but you didn’t renew it until the 18th but assume you have received the renewal document's showing renewal from the 14th which also shouldn’t be a concern as most Insurers usually provide say a 7 days grace etc.

Countdown

Original Poster:

40,278 posts

198 months

Wednesday 22nd May
quotequote all
Hi Alscar

My insurance with Admiral finished on 14th May. The renewal with Privilege didn’t start until 19th May. I had actually done the renewal at the beginning of May but I couldn’t remember what the end date of the Admiral policy was.

Hope that makes!

alscar

4,421 posts

215 months

Wednesday 22nd May
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Hi Alscar

My insurance with Admiral finished on 14th May. The renewal with Privilege didn’t start until 19th May. I had actually done the renewal at the beginning of May but I couldn’t remember what the end date of the Admiral policy was.

Hope that makes!
Ah ok - I still think you’ll be absolutely fine with a pipe claim though.
Thankfully your house didn’t have a fire on say the 15th though especially as you had moved Insurers.


Countdown

Original Poster:

40,278 posts

198 months

Wednesday 22nd May
quotequote all
Agreed biggrin

Countdown

Original Poster:

40,278 posts

198 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
Just in case anybody's interested biggrin

It's dragging on a bit. When I registered the claim the Insurers asked me for a copy of the drain engineers report, their invoice, and a copy of my previous insurance documents. (Thankfully these were online). After I sent them in I cashed them a couple of times and eventually they called me back to say that as the invoice for unblocking was for £300 this was less than my excess so they wouldn't be paying out.

I had to explain again that I wasnt claiming for the unblocking fee, it was the repair of the collpased drain under the kitchen banghead So then they told me another company would contact me to examine the drains (which I had to chase again). Finally the Insurer-appointed engineer bloke came out today to confirm what the original company had said (ie collapsed drain) and suggested that they might be able to fix it without ripping up the kitchen woohoo

However he's going to submit a report to the Insurers so I need to wait to hear back from them.

I think this is the first time I've ever had to claim on my house insurance in 25+ years of owning a house and the 2nd time I've ever claimed on any kind of insurance (when my Vauxhall Belmont 1.4LX was stolen - that was a happy ending, I'd paid £1500 for a Cat D and got paid out £2400 market value)

Edited by Countdown on Wednesday 19th June 16:44