Damage to garden by neighbour's falling tree - Insurer changing position on coverage

[Edinburgh24]

Every comment causes me to check the exact detail of the policy.

So the policy states a limit of £1,000 on garden plants in contents. I would never have thought that this meant to include trees but the policy wording suggests that it does.

[Edinburgh24]

To say that this eventuality was not something that I considered when looking at the policy is an understatement.

The tree that fell is on the other side of the road. We have some large trees but nothing like this size. Out of maybe a hundred trees in the vicinity there is nothing else that could have caused this type of damage.

The more I look the more it looks like I might have to make a negligence claim against my neighbour.

I consistently trim back my own trees to make sure they don’t have branches hanging too near the house or over the road as I am worried about damage they may cause.

[Pezza54]

I still think your insurance should cover damaged fencing and paving as part of your buildings insurance. Don't accept Admiral's argument that your fence was damaged by the storm

[Edinburgh24]

You have been very helpful thanks.

Their argument is not that it was damaged by the storm.

Their argument is that they have excluded impact damage to hedges and fences from falling trees.

If a car crashed into the hedge I would be covered.

If a tree fell and hit my house I would be covered.

But if a tree falls and damages hedges/fences they are not covered.

The main arguments I have are -

1. They offered to cover this, going as far as to organise a surveyor and have now changed their mind.

2. It was not my tree that fell but a third party tree that I have no control over and thus should be covered as damage caused by a third party and possibly claimed against that third party.

[echat11]

You need to do some research on the 'tree', what was the condition of the tree? etc.

https://www.broadleaftreesurgery.co....Fraised%20soil.

[Edinburgh24]

Thanks.

I guess if I had to go along the negligence claim route I would need to get a report drawn up.

From my observations. The tree leaned towards the side it fell. This is not necessarily unusual as trees tend to grow away from
the prevailing wind but it leaned more than any other tree on the street where it was growing. Pictures are available from Streetview.

The garden of my neighbour sits over 1m above the road behind a dry stone wall. The tree was adjacent to the wall, also over 1m above the road, so would basically have had no roots on the side it fell towards. A couple of roots grew through the wall. This would appear to be an inherently unstable situation.

The tree surgeon working to clear it up remarked that they had seen it previously when working at my house and thought it looked unstable, but might not want to get involved as they have also worked for the neighbour in the past. The insurance company surveyor said that the dry stone wall was not adequate as a retaining wall. It certainly would not meet building control requirements today.

From looking at things now. It could be that what happened is the inadequate wall may have collapsed first leading to the tree falling over.

[des8]

I tried this and his insurer will not accept a claim from me, only from my insurer. My insurer has consistently refused to do this, even though, as I have pointed out, this would clear their liability.

If the situation continues to make a claim from his insurer I believe that would have to lodge a legal negligence claim.

If there is a way to do this without taking legal action then I would be very pleased to hear it.

Of course your neighbour's insurer will not accept a claim from you.
They do not insure you.
You need to write to your neighbour, holding him liable.
Your neighbour may then make a claim against his insurer, if his policy covers third party liability
If the insurers decline the claim, or if he does not have that third party cover and refuses to pay, you sue your neighbour. If he has that cover the insurers come to court on his behalf (if they think it is worth defending the claim).

Regarding your Admiral policy, if it is a standard online policy can you post a link to it please so we can read the whole document in the original.
We might need also to see the schedule

As Admiral have declined your claim, they are not going to try and recoup from the neighbour's insurance something they have not lost. It would be unethical.

[Edinburgh24]

Here is the policy booklet, it is gold level cover although that has no impact on the coverage.

I do have the legal cover so could perhaps use that to raise a claim.

I believe that by the wording of the policy booklet I would not be covered, although I think it is pretty poor form for third party damage. But as I say Admiral called me back and said I was covered then arranged for a surveyor to estimate the cost of the damage in a subsequent call. Then they changed their mind. Even if this was an error on their part could I argue that a verbal contract was created considering they made the offer to cover it and persisted with that offer for almost two weeks of calls.

Admiral have said they will try to recoup the excess from the neighbour’s insurer. This is part of why it is unclear to me as I would have thought if they can claim the excess as my uninsured loss then why can’t they claim other losses. It was also Admiral who asked me
to ask my neighbour to contact his insurer on my behalf, with them then refusing to deal that way and asking me to get Admiral to contact them.

My neighbour’s insurer has verbally told them that they would accept a third party claim from my insurer, but that may of course not hold up in reality.

My neighbour’s insurer also appears to have agreed to cover it as storm damage which hurts my position. I have checked multiple places and the wind speed did not reach the storm definition of 55mph. If it did not reach this speed he would not have been covered. They told him they would therefore not consider him negligible. Thus if I argue negligence on the part of my neighbour I am also arguing they should not be covered. This may now be moot as his insurer has agreed a payout already.

It is not clear yet if Admiral are declining the claim. They have said they will cover the clean up costs at the moment and I am waiting to hear back regarding my complaint.

[des8]

Well it is late and I'm about to go to bed when I saw your last post.
A very quick look and contents definition definitely excludes garden plants, so there is no way they will pay out for those, even if they originally made a mistake and said they would.
If you have any confirmation in writing about the plants being covered your best bet will be a complaint about their poor level of service.

I'll look at the rest of the policy later.

[Edinburgh24]

I couldn't see the link so am posting it again.

https://eui-pdf-assets.s3.eu-west-1....ance-Cover.pdf

Ojn page 4 it says that Contents do to include garden plants, but this is just for defining the word Contents. I had to read this a couple of times as it was confusing.

On page 24 it says that Garden Plants are covered, although not from storms. But they seem to agree this is impact damage.

On page 14 it says that damage to buildings (which include hedges and fences) by falling trees is not covered except for clean up costs which they now say they will cover. Initially they said this was not covered, which I accepted when I accepted that they were saying they would cover the hedges and fence.

My Policy Schedule says that the limit for coverage on Garden Plants is £1,000, but the Admiral website says that the limit is £1,000 on a standard policy, £3,000 on a Gold policy and £5,000 on a Platinum policy. I have a Gold policy. I would have some claim against this coverage as some of the damage was to single trees but most of the damage was to hedges.

I don't dispute that the policy booklet says this would mostly not be covered. The problem Admiral have created is that they told me it would be covered. It was then 25 days before they decided it was not covered. In this time I told my neighbour not to worry about it as Admiral had said they were covering it and instructed a company who I plan to have replace the fence. It puts me in a very poor light with my neighbour to go back on what was said and has made it more difficult for me to organise reports and a liability claim than it would have been at the start of this. I would have acted very differently if they had not done this.

[atticus]

I tried this and his insurer will not accept a claim from me, only from my insurer. My insurer has consistently refused to do this, even though, as I have pointed out, this would clear their liability.

If the situation continues to make a claim from his insurer I believe that would have to lodge a legal negligence claim.

If there is a way to do this without taking legal action then I would be very pleased to hear it.

There clearly isn't.

As I said, if your insurer won't accept a claim, your claim is against your neighbour. Not his insurer - that is a claim for him to make.

[Edinburgh24]

It does indeed seem like I will have to do it by lodging a claim against them.

I am gathering evidence re windspeed, state of the wall and tree etc.

Any thoughts on whether I just put in writing that I am holding them liable and ask them to forward it to their insurers, but with no further arguments as to their negligence or not which clearly won’t go down well. Or do I just go in fully armed and have reports written up.

I don’t want to jeopardise their position if I don’t have to, but ultimately I have to consider my costs which are considerably larger than theirs.

[echat11]

This is posted for information only -

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org....RN-3751118.pdf

[Edinburgh24]

Thanks a useful read.

[Pezza54]

That does surprise me. The only insurance cover you have got on any fencing and gates (including new fencing and gates) is damage or loss caused by riot or fire
If a falling tree hasn't caused damage to buildings, the insurance doesn't cover the removal of the tree.