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

[FireAdvice]

My neighbour has "accidentally" set my massive conifer hedge on fire today - lost the garden office, two sheds, lots of bikes, loads of stuff, etc. Obviously the main thing is we are OK.

I have rung my insurance and they have said that I have to pay a £350 excess and they will cover other stuff. A friend has said I should claim on the neighbours insurance as then I won't be liable for an excess and also my insurance won't go up next year - how do I do that? Do I just ask the neighbour for their insurance details?

Have also lost about 30ft length of 9ft high conifer hedge - all the back boundary and half of the side boundary. But there is another 20ft of conifer hedge nearer the house still intact. My insurance have told me to get a quote for stump removal and fence instillation - can I ask for all the length of the hedge including the non damaged hedge to be removed and fenced the full length - it will look stupid having half fence and half hedge?

Thank you. That’s good advice. So if an expensive bike is 5 years old am I likely to get the price of a new bike or what a 5yo bike is worth? I have no idea if I have a new for old policy or even if that’s a thing.

Found on the policy it says new for old 👍🏻

Thank you. Awful evening

I worked for an insurance company many years ago, and in my experience your insurance company is not going to pay if they can get his to pay. But your insurance company should handle it.

Absolutely you should claim off their insurance.
Thats what its there fore.

Contact your own insurance for advice.

My friends neighbours tank leaked and badly damaged both houses.

Neighbours insurance paid for the house to be redecorated.

Get advice.
Consider retaining a loss adjuster.
They are worth their weight of their fee and what they can negotiate on your behalf.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

He’s been taken to court by various people for other stuff and owes money and doesn’t pay it. The bailiffs are currently after him trying to get his cars for unpaid stuff that have been awarded to other people in the courts. I’ve no chance of getting anything from him.

Yeah you’d like to think seeing as he was the only person welding near the hedge he would be found negligent but the fire brigade people didn’t seem to be of the same opinion. They said he couldn’t have thrown anything hot enough into the hedge to make the hedge catch fire without seriously burning his hand 🤷‍♀️. Will never know for sure. He’s threatened to burn the hedge down before and I do have a witness to that but the police said it didn’t mean anything.

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

It’s actually his mother’s house, so she probably will have. He lives there 24/7.

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.

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

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.

To be honest I don't want to talk to him at all so would rather lose the £350 excess and go through my insurance.

I'm just so sad about losing the hedge, it's been a great barrier/buffer between him /his idiotic behaviour and us. And the fact it will look so daft having half fence and half hedge.

Plus I'm slightly nervous because my insurance company said something about the hedge is not building and it;s not contents so they sort of won't deal with it.

But that we could sort it out and make a claim for cash - so I do hope they cover it. Quote has come back at just under 5.5k to remove the burnt hedge and replace with fence.

His mother has been round to my next door neighbour to apologise to them - their fence and summer house was burnt as well. She's told them she thinks I'm a real cow! She's not been here to say sorry. 😁

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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