House insurance renewed - claim on 2nd day

[Countdown]

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]

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]

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 paranoid

[Glassman]

You're covered from the moment of policy inception.

[dalenorth]

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]

Thanks both.

[alscar]

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]

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]

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]

Agreed

[Countdown]

Just in case anybody's interested

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 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

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

[Countdown]

Anybody want to guess how much this claim cost? I was surprised to put it mildy. Basically

Two visits by Insurance-appointed drainage engineers to CCTV / map out the various drains under my patio / kitchen
Digging up a new drain channel (removing about 5 metres of flagstones, creating a trench, laying pipe)
"Sleeving" another 4 metre pipe to prevent it also collapsing
Filling trench up and relaying flagstones

[croyde]

£10k

[Countdown]

Close - £8200

I was a bit surprised tbh, it was 2 guys for 5 days working 9am - 3pm

[Simpo Two]

Countdown said:

Close - £8200

I was a bit surprised tbh, it was 2 guys for 5 days working 9am - 3pm

I make that £136p/h.

[mikeiow]

Simpo Two said:

Countdown said:

Close - £8200

I was a bit surprised tbh, it was 2 guys for 5 days working 9am - 3pm

I make that £136p/h.

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