Worried sick , re home insurance

[Upsidedownroundandround]

Posting here for traffic as no luck on property
So to cut a long story short , renewed home insurance July this year as premiums on previous we too high. We have since now got a pipe leaking through our kitchen ceiling so have contacted home insurance as it's becoming quite distressing. They have sent emergency people out who have tested the ceiling to see if it's safe to take down to find this leak.
Any way to cut a long story short have been contacted by insurance to say we didn't declare previous claim from last year !? We had asked advice about our porch as a neighbour noted the glass had slipped and looked like we had movement in the porch as there was cracking (only lived here 3 years ) so insurance sent a surveyor out and resulted in them saying no claim will be made as it's clearly an old issue and why would we want to claim ? ( We just wanted to know if it was something we were covered for as panicked out porch was going to fall down ) Now I'm worried sick they will cancel this policy and we are left with an ongoing leak. I have explained I genuinely didn't think that it was a claim as they hadn't actually done anything about it ? And said they weren't going to ? Advice please 🥺

You need to take a look at the policy wording, you should have a copy or go to the site as a new customer and see what it says about previous claims. There may be a term/condition that states a claim doesn’t have to result in a payment or something.

You need to look to see whether it specifies a loss. All the companies share information about previous claims, that’s how they have found out.

From AI
For home insurance purposes, a "previous claim" is generally defined as
any incident or loss that was reported to an insurer, regardless of whether a payout was made or if the claim was eventually declined

I'm new to all this so didn't even think , very stupid and naive of me but I was helping my mum as it's her house and my dad used to deal with all this in the past and he is no longer , it's now with an underwriter and we still have a pipe dripping and no idea what we are going to do now 😭 in so stressed , my dd has bad mental health ATM and me myself so this is just tipping me slightly more towards the edge . I will see if I can find something on the policy document ? When I get home I've had to go out for a bit as I can't bear looking at the dripping and the bucket

it will be explained in the literature. Even though your claim was declined it was still recorded as an incident on your record that needed to be declared. It might be cheaper to call a plumber to fix. I would only use home insurance for extensive work.

Crikey now I am worried , it was rejected I think as they said the movement in the porch was "old" and thus no reason for a claim ?

Unfortunately insurance calculates risk and as you’ve already had someone out to look at an issue it will be recorded on their data base. A claim is different from an approved claim. A claim is you stating there is an issue that may warrant a payout, an approved claim is when they agree with you.

It's unlikely the actual leaking pipe will be covered anyway. You'll need to get that fixed. The insurance might cover any damage the leak has done but it won't cover the leak itself.

exactly, I wouldn’t call insurance for this scenario at all.

home insurance does not cover the cost of all future home repairs and maintenance unfortunately op. Everyone would be claiming every bit of work done if that was the case. It’s for storm damage/theft/fire/flood etc. The homeowner is still responsible for the upkeep and necessary repairs outside of this

You can have a look if you log on to your online account maybe. Hope you get it sorted

If you have a leak, you should get it fixed immediately. Take photos of damage beforehand. Otherwise the problem is only going to get worse. You can't claim on insurance for general wear and tear, which is likely what the leak will be. As a PP has said, you might be able to claim for the decorative damage.

Are the insurers Covea or Simply Business by any chance?

No they aren't those

My plumber isn't available and we are still awaiting home serve to wait for the all clear r.e aspestos to come and go up through the ceiling to stop leak

I've owned multiple homes and never claimed on home insurance for anything that small? Your first step should be to get a builder/plumber/whichever trade is suitable to have a look. You don't just call out your insurance for every slight issue. And you never wait for home insurance to fix an active leak!

I didn't know any of this at all , I just thought escape of water meant we would be assisted , we did have our plumber out who carried out sealing the tray as per r.e home serves advice but we have a leak despite this so we've already shelled out 340 paying out plumber already so not sure how much more it will.cost and we don't have bundles of money to throw at it so close to Christmas

Yeah this isn’t the sort of thing where you wait for your regular plumber to fit you in. You ring around every emergency plumber within 20 miles and ask the first one who answers. C’mon op if you’re old enough to own a house you’re capable of working out that you need to make the water stop coming out of the pipe asap! 🤦‍♀️

Boo for being so abrupt to someone who is clearly having a shit time, it’s unnecessary

My dad usually fixed these things , we don't just have money laying around to call an emergency plumber out , we did have home serve out the next day who didn't get it right , and now that's why it is now worse , I'm just going by what home serve told us initially , I have no one as only been in this area 3 years.

I presume you have turned off your mains water?

No we haven't as home serve said it's not necessary,

OP you cannot sit with a pipe dripping water into a bucket of water and wait for the insurance to fix and pay. You need an emergency plumber.

You should go back to HomeServe if they haven't completed the repair properly. If they can't repair it for some reason then they should advise who can. You are paying them an annual fee to deal with problems with pipes and plumbing.....