Doing without House Insurance

Brendan Burgess said:

Read this slowly line by line.

I will start with the conclusion just so you do not get confused. You absolutely need buildings insurance.

1) Your house burns down and does not damage anyone else's
Your insurance company will fix the problem.

2) Your house burns down and damages your neighbour's house
You will be liable for the damage done to their house.
Your insurance company will pay for the damage done to their house

3) Your neighbour's house burns down and damages your house
3A) Neither of you have any insurance
You can claim off your neighbour but they probably won't be able to compensate you.
3B) Your neighbour has insurance but you don't.
You can claim off your neigjbour and their insurance company will compensate you
3C) You have insurance but your neighbour doesn't.
Your insurance company will compensate you and may go after your neighbour
3D) You both have insurance.
Your insurance company will compensate you and then discuss the matter with the other insurance company.

In all cases, you are better off with your own insurance.

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Thanks Brendan

I'm sorry if I'm upsetting people, that is not my intention. I know that I will be better off with insurance in the event of an accident, etc. I've always had house insurance and understand the importance, but am trying to clarify how it operates.

Would you mind applying you points above to the last two of my original questions, and I'll leave it at that then.

4. Unforeseen events; e.g. say in a storm a tile or slate fell my house on landed on a neighbour's car?

5. Conversely to No. 4 above; if the neighbour's aerial fell over and damaged the shared chimney (I don't have an aerial) or my roof, would they be liable for repairs or because it is a shared chimney we would both have to pay for repairs even though it's their aerial?

These events haven't happened, but I'm particularly interested in the aerial on chimney situation. I live in an area where high TV aerials are required, I don't have an aerial on our shared chimney, but my neighbour does. I have no problem with that, but these aerials are heavier than we often think and when a storm is blowing move quite a lot. I haven't heard of this happening, but I could imagine a chimney at least being cracked if not further damaged. It's our shared chimney, but the neighbour's aerial. How would insurance handle it?

Thanks

thedaddyman said:

Again, no black and white answer to this. Does my insurance cover me if my neighbour damages my house, yes. Does my insurance cover any damage to his house, not neccessarily. If I'm keeping my property in good order and a leak still occurs, possibly not. Ultimately my insurer will have to check if the damage occurred due to my carelessness, failing to keep my property in good order etc, in effect, was I negligent. If I was, then I'm possibly not covered but still liable.

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Hi
Do you know if insurance companies do chase a careless neighbour that caused a person to claim on the own insurance? I'm not doubting that it's possible, but does it happen?

ClubMan said:

Which has been clearly stated several times already. E.g.:

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Hi ClubMan

If you look at earlier in the thread, originally comments said if damage was done to my house by my neighbour, I would claim against their insurance as a 3rd party. Whereas later comments are tending towards you claim off your own insurance. This is the essense of what I was trying to clarify.

Eireann said:

Hi
Do you know if insurance companies do chase a careless neighbour that caused a person to claim on the own insurance? I'm not doubting that it's possible, but does it happen?

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Yes. That is why there is a subrogation condition in your insurance policy. But the insurer makes that decision. They look at the likelihood of them succeeding in recouping the losses and the costs incurred in doing same.

Eireann said:

Hi ClubMan

If you look at earlier in the thread, originally comments said if damage was done to my house by my neighbour, I would claim against their insurance as a 3rd party. Whereas later comments are tending towards you claim off your own insurance. This is the essense of what I was trying to clarify.

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A household policy includes public liability cover, both personally and as a property owner. Public liability covers you against losses or damage to third party property resulting from your negligence. It even works to this extent - you are walking down the road and you open your umbrella and it pokes another person in the eye and he sues you, it will cover the cost of the claim. You are cycling down the down the road and you break the lights and slam into a pedestrian and do them serious damage, they sue you. Household policy pays. And yes I have seen real life examples of both.

if you want to get into the minutiae of what is your household policy protects you for, you need to check your policy wording thoroughly. I would gather people are just getting impatient as you arent using this thread for advice as to whether you should have cover but more interrogating every useful point people are making as to the need for it.

peteb said:

Yes. That is why there is a subrogation condition in your insurance policy. But the insurer makes that decision. They look at the likelihood of them succeeding in recouping the losses and the costs incurred in doing same.

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Thank you, good info, I will look into that to learn more.

peteb said:

if you want to get into the minutiae of what is your household policy protects you for, you need to check your policy wording thoroughly. I would gather people are just getting impatient as you arent using this thread for advice as to whether you should have cover but more interrogating every useful point people are making as to the need for it.

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Thank you, I do believe, not just here, but there are lots of assumptions happening, that are different in reality.

peteb said:

A household policy includes public liability cover, both personally and as a property owner. Public liability covers you against losses or damage to third party property resulting from your negligence. It even works to this extent - you are walking down the road and you open your umbrella and it pokes another person in the eye and he sues you, it will cover the cost of the claim. You are cycling down the down the road and you break the lights and slam into a pedestrian and do them serious damage, they sue you. Household policy pays. And yes I have seen real life examples of both.

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Thank you, am I correct in interpreting this to mean usual / standard house insurance has this cover if I'm 10 miles from home?

peteb said:

A household policy includes public liability cover, both personally and as a property owner. Public liability covers you against losses or damage to third party property resulting from your negligence. It even works to this extent - you are walking down the road and you open your umbrella and it pokes another person in the eye and he sues you, it will cover the cost of the claim. You are cycling down the down the road and you break the lights and slam into a pedestrian and do them serious damage, they sue you. Household policy pays. And yes I have seen real life examples of both.

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I'm not questionning your info, but it does seem a very open ended for the insurer, upto say the €5M limit.
A cyclist kills a pedestrian in London a few years ago (although in this case the cyclist was travelling at extreme speed and without brakes and was convicted) if we assume the cyclist has no assets, but had house insurance, would the victims family be compensated by his insurance?

Eireann said:

Hi
Do you know if insurance companies do chase a careless neighbour that caused a person to claim on the own insurance? I'm not doubting that it's possible, but does it happen?

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I honestly have no idea and it may be done insurance company to insurance company and not get in the public demain.

Eireann said:

Thank you, am I correct in interpreting this to mean usual / standard house insurance has this cover if I'm 10 miles from home?

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Yes. its personal public liability cover. You will usually find it under the contents section. If you go with buildings only cover then you will only get property owners liability. But that may differ from policy to policy

Eireann said:

I'm not questionning your info, but it does seem a very open ended for the insurer, upto say the €5M limit.
A cyclist kills a pedestrian in London a few years ago (although in this case the cyclist was travelling at extreme speed and without brakes and was convicted) if we assume the cyclist has no assets, but had house insurance, would the victims family be compensated by his insurance?

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if he had contents cover and that policy had personal public liability, then yes. But the pedestrians estate would have to take the case or possibly a by-stander suffering from nervous shock etc.

S

peteb said:

if you want to get into the minutiae of what is your household policy protects you for, you need to check your policy wording thoroughly.

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Yes, as I advised the original poster at the start of this thread but they don't seem to want to do that for some reason...

ClubMan said:

Have a look at your current or a recent home insurance policy booklet to see what's covered and what's not under the sorts of headings that you mention above. That should clarify matters. And/or talk to a broker.

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Brendan Burgess said:

I worked briefly in Amev General Insurance company.

A woman claimed that their neighbour's dog had come into her garden and destroyed the clothes on the line. The damage was €400 with a €100 excess, so it would have cost us €300 you settle it.

But we told her to claim against the neighbour.
It turned out that the neighbour was insured with us as well and she claimed €400 under the public liability policy, on which there was no excess.

So we would have been better off settling the claim directly.

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Hi Brendan

It's an interesting anecdote. And I realise relevant to my question;

In this case, Amev General told their customer to claim against the offender. The offender's insurer then compensated the 3rd party claimant. (OK it was also Amev General, but it could have been two different insurers, so that not relevant to this discussion).

Did Amev have an obligation to compensate the injured party in the first place? If they did why did, why not just pay the claim?

Also, if the victim's insurer was obliged to pay, wouldn't the offender's insurer reject the 3rd party claim and say to the victim you should claim off your own insurance?

peteb said:

Yes. its personal public liability cover. You will usually find it under the contents section. If you go with buildings only cover then you will only get property owners liability. But that may differ from policy to policy

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Thank you.

peteb said:

if he had contents cover and that policy had personal public liability, then yes. But the pedestrians estate would have to take the case or possibly a by-stander suffering from nervous shock etc.

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Thank you for good & precise info

Sue Ellen said:

Have had a very quick read back over the thread and not being nosy but are doing this financial decluttering through necessity or just as a means of saving money? The stress attached to this type of cost saving must be terrible and not being disrespectful but that comes across in the train of thought displayed here.

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Thanks for asking.

GSheehy said:

You mean if you had no fire insurance cover, fire starts in your gaff, and your house was burnt to the ground, along with the one attached to yours, would you be liable for the rebuilding cost of the neighbours house too? Yes.

Plus, you'd have all the costs of the neighbours being rehoused somewhere else while it's being rebuilt. And, if any of them were injured or died, that's your liability too.

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That is incorrect.
You can only be held responsible for a fire if it is due to negligence on your part.
You do have a duty as a property owner to take all reasonable measures to guard against the outbreak of a fire.
If for example you were storing hazardous goods in a dangerous manner and they caught fire which spread to the adjoining property you would likely be considered liable.
A court case Nugent-v-Foley 2015 held this to be the case.

If on the other hand if you forgot that an electrical appliance was still on and it was the cause of a fire this would (most likely) be considered accidental and you would not be held responsible for damage to a neighbouring property

Ed054 said:

That is incorrect

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So, you claim under your own policy if you have insurance and neighbor claims under theirs, if they have insurance.

And if neighbor doesn't have insurance, tough luck?