Should I claim off neighbour's insurance after a fire?

My friend did exactly this by putting a still hot disposable BBQ in a wheely bin that was against a shed. Lost the shed and the neighbours fence and garden room. Stupid, but it was accidental.

The neighbours did claim on his insurance.

I also deal with these. Apart from the legal liability issues (which can take months and months to iron out) a lot of people also don’t realise is that you’ll get new for old if you avail of your own policy but not if you claim against him. Even if you were successful in your arguments and his insurers (if he is insured) said they would consider your claim through the liability section of his policy, you’d only be offered an indemnity settlement, ie taking into consideration the age and likely remaining lifespan of any items you’re claiming for. So the bike you talk about, if it was bought five years ago you get the monetary equivalent of what you expect to pay for a five year old second hand one of the same make and model. These adjustments over multiple items can quickly erode whatever saving you might make on your excess.

Also specific to your situation if he’s that difficult to live close to I wouldn’t be antagonising matters further by putting a claim in against him and just get your own insurers to handle it. It’ll be sorted much more quickly and if they think there’s any realistic prospect of recovery against dickhead neighbour’s home insurers they will pursue it with them directly.

that's what I was thinking
I've had several large claims because of leaks from the apartment above - I have insured my contents, so claim from that.
Any insurance they have taken out is for their possessions, not mine.

i deal with these type of insurance claims. As a previous poster advised, you do need to claim through your own insurance company. You can’t simply claim off someone else’s insurance as other people have (wrongly) advised. They will investigate whether there is a possible recovery against your neighbours insurers.

it is horrible going through this but this is why you have home insurance . Also if your insurers can proceed with a successful recovery they will try to recover your excess for you as well.

I'm sorry to hear that this man has previously caused you problems, I wondered why you hadn't mentioned him in your initial post, but clearly from past experience, you realised that he (and his mother from what she said about you), are likely to do everything they can to wriggle out of their responsibilities.

Is there any chance that you might be able to film him doing welding, at all, possibly from a bedroom window? If so, look out for an opportunity, as this would at least prove that he does do welding in his garden. I really hope that this doesn't take too long to get put right, and that it's not too stressful, as it's bad enough when it's your own mistake, but someone else's always feels much worse, somehow.

Hi op
we had our neighbours car entered our garden and caused a lot of damage to the garden and plants few weeks ago and we claimed off his insurance and his insurance company gave us options for us to wait for them to pay us or to claim from our insurance company and get the work done fast and then our insurance can claim from his insurance company after if that makes sense

Claim on your insurance
They will pay you apart from the excess
Give them neighbours details and how you think it started (they can pay for the fire report etc to look further into it)
They will go after neighbour if they think they are liable to get their costs plus your excess back
Disaster care do cleaning and restoration
Its also much faster to claim on your insurance first than to try and start with neighbour

I meant to say my shed was really old and I'd been thinking of replacing it so I wasn't too upset. It was just a hassle as there was lots of admin and the insurance company were slow. An assessor came, then someone to bag up all the debris. Then another company to clear the bags. Then another to out up the fence and finally another one to put up the shed! It was 6 months after the fire that I finally got a new shed.

iirc the plants in my garden are covered by my contents insurance. Presuming the hedge/its roots are within your boundary, it should be covered. You don't have to replace it with a fence, but I bet they don't want to pay up for fully grown shrubs!

I had a very similar situation a couple of years ago. A fire started in the neighbours garden and spread to ours and burnt down our shed and fence and plants etc.
I claimed off my insurance and they said they could make the claim from the neighbours insurance depending on what the investigation said. We think it was a discarded cigarette but the investigation said it was accidental so I had to pay my excess.
I did get a new fence and shed arranged through the insurance and they asked for a list of everything in the shed and I got amazon or halfords vouchers to buy replacements.

That’s bullshit.

I am a welder and a piece of metal that I’d have just finished welding is hot enough to burn my gloves. If I threw it onto dry grass/hedging it would probably catch fire.

welding heats metal up to the point it’s liquid. That’s plenty hot enough after a few seconds to set something alight.

also, welding sparks and splatters a fair bit esp if you’ve not got a shielding gas (depending on method) and/or no protection from breeze around your torch/stick. Wouldn’t take much to, again, set fire to dry grass/hedging.

If anything he’s negligent in terms of not welding safely.

So, it wasn't an 'act of god' - it was mishandling of fire, which your neighbour is totally responsible for.
Yes, your insurers will deal with the insurable parts of your claim and deduct the excess. They should go after the neighbour/insurers to reclaim. However, insurers are not usually interested in the uninsured parts, ie excess and anything they don't cover. So, absolutely contact the Legal Protection people if you have that on your insurance.

My suspicion is that either he isnt covered by his mothers policy OR its not an insured peril

Blimey, some really crap advice here! Only two PPs know what they are actually talking about.

You go through your insurance. You pay them to do this stuff, his insurance company (if he has one) 'works' for him, not for you.

When you took out the insurance you agreed to pay an excess of £350, so now you have to pay it 🤷‍♀️. You can opt to pay less, but your premiums will be higher. It's possible you may get it back if they decide it was all his fault.

@FireAdvice will he even have house and contents insurance???

Just be careful. Check if your policy needs you to advise of items over a certain value. If it does and you haven't told them of eg the bike, then you won't get the full value.

Insurance won't cover removal of the remaining hedge, but it would be good to remove as conifers are very flammable.

Unfortunately you won’t be able to
claim off his insurance unless you can prove he was negligent. The Metropolis Act covers this and will be what his insurance company relies on if the fire was an accident and there is no negligence on the neighbours part then you will have to avail of your own household cover.

Surely you can ask your neighbour to pay your excess and if he won’t then take him to the small claims court.

Not a specialist but whoever did it is responsible and pays. Similar happened to me, not throwing hot metal into a hedge but damage that was the neighbours fault, and our insurance company dealt with the whole thing but they (the neighbours) had home insurance that covered it.

May I suggest

letter to Fire Brigade & Police

CC Environmental Health & ASB Team at Council

Thank you for attending to the fire at my house today.

I have previously had to call the Fire Brigade following a number of fires lit at my neighbours house

There has now been a fire starting on my neighbours side of the hedge that has caused about £30K worth of damage to say nothing of my personal distress . It has been stated by my neighbour that he started it while he was welding.

Given what has happened I would like appropriate action to be taken to ensure that there are no more fires at my neighbours house and other anti social behaviour.

I would like to suggest that we have a meeting at (place time) to plan what action is to be taken.