‘I’ve paid premiums for 28 years – but at the first flood, my insurer won’t pay’
Now the dust is beginning to settle, temporarily I fear, and the water receding, some amazing stories of poor insurance practice are emerging. This article demonstrates the need for some of these companies to be taken firmly in hand through a programme of tougher regulation. In a salutary tale which will concern many rural dwellers in areas prone to flooding in tells us:
Jeanette Shipp has lived in her home in Fetcham, Surrey, for 28 years, and has been fully insured there throughout – or so she thought.
But when she recently claimed for flood damage her insurer turned her down, effectively making her current plight worse, and causing her to worry that she will never get cover again.
Her property has a very long garden leading to a railway embankment which divides hers and neighbours’ land from the River Mole, outside Leatherhead in Surrey.
In her time living there the water has never come anywhere near her house. But in the late December spate of flooding the waters poured through culverts in the railway embankment and rose sufficiently to cover her ground floor to a depth of over a foot.
Initially her insurer – the UK division of Spanish company Ocaso – swung into action, promising to meet Jeanette’s hotel costs and to send contractors to deal with various aspects of the damage. But within a fortnight it changed its mind. Her house would not be covered, the loss adjuster said, because it was within 200m of a river. The implication was that it was her fault for not making clear the precise distance between the home and the river. The river itself is not visible from Jeanette’s or her neighbours’ properties.