Neighbours roof wrote one of cars off and damaged the other please help !!

[stuuartdavis84]

My neighbours roof ridge tile (2 meters of the ridge) come away from the roof and landed on both my cars which were parked the other side of there garden fence in my 2 parking spaces.
The insurance company are saying its storm damage and I'm not entitled to claim on there insurance.
The wind speed they say was 39 knots but can't say if it was my exact area or what time these speeds were recorded. So how can they say the wind was that bad at 10am when the incident happened?
Also my argument is that no other of the 50 houses on my estate (all built at the same time / same builder) were effected at all !??
Also 10 of the 50 houses roofs are facing in the same direction again they were not effected...
My feeling is there roof was not maintain right but how do o prove negligent? It's not like I've been up onto there roof or even looked up at the roof prior to the incident! Please help

[des8]

Re: Neighbours roof wrote one of cars off and damaged the other please help !!

Hi and welcome to LB.
Do you have comprehensive insurance for your cars? If so claim on that.

On a technical point you do not claim against your neighbours insurance company.
Your claim is against the neighbour, who then claims against his insurer on the liability section of his policy.
As the insurer is arguing the neighbour is not liable for storm damage as the wind speed was 39 knots, you could point out to them that a strict meteorological definition of a terrestial windstorm is 10 on the Beaufort scale, where the wind speed is 55mph or 47.7 knots and you'd be very grateful if they would settle your claim immediately as the conditions by their own admission did not reach storm level, and so the property had not been maintained if it could not resist a gentle breeze.

Do it in writing, signed for by letter to your neighbour and to the insurance company if they have contacted you directly.

They probably won't accept your argument as they will have their own definition of storm and you will have to argue firmly with them.
But as it is not your policy you do not have to accept their definition.
If it comes to it they would have to prove in court that their definition was fair, and in view of the evidence you have of neighbouring houses, and their own statement re wind speed , IMO you would be successful.