Storm Damage - neighbour's car

[whatever1980]

Hi

During Storm Arwen debris blew off my house and hit my neighbour's car damaging the paint.

I'm currently claiming for damage to my house from insurer.

I've asked insurer about neighbours car as cause of damage was my house.

They've said it's not their problem but other people have said it should be covered.

My neighbour is concerned that if they claim on their motor insurance their premium will go up or they'll lose ncb.

I see their point. This isn't their fault.

Surely their insurer would be claiming against my house insurer in any case.

Anyone any experience of this please?

Whatever you do, do not pay them in cash or pay for the work out of your own pocket.

Ask them to get their motor insurers to talk with your home insurers and leave it at that.

That's what motor insurance is for, for him / her to claim against or use as a negotiation party.

They should have protected their no claims bonus anyway.

You could not have prevented the storm, you are not liable unless you knew you had problems and did not fix them before the storm. PP is right neighbour pays or claims on own insurance

Thanks all I'll let him know.

He's a good neighbour and I don't want to upset or annoy him. Quote he has got for work needed to respray car is around £8k. He'd clearly said he didn't want to go though his insurers in car his premium went up but can't see how it could if fault in claim not his?

00:11whatever1980

He seriously expects you to pay £8k!

The guy seems uneducated.

Insurance isn't always about whose fault it is.
It's the statistical likely hood of being in an accident.

So, if he parked his car in a garage he could have prevented the damage.
He knew a storm was coming - news banged on about it enough.

You however, did not know your property was going to fall apart.

He's not a good neighbour - he will take £8k from you - but his insurance won't go up by £8k and he can always move to another insurer.

Years ago, my own fault I hit the back of a car on the motorway - the damage to the car was £17k repair bill - my insurers at the time wanted £2.5k to insure me because of the accident - I obviously wasn't going to pay that so went to a competitor for a much cheaper annual rate. (my old insurers probably wanted me off their books, fair enough)

So, even through the insurance route he will not be struggling, but you will be out of pocket for £8k of you go with his stupid idea!!

He needs to get on the phone to his insurer
You need to give your him your home insurance details
End of story

Don't let this 'good' neighbour walk over you

My experience with storm damage is that the insurance generally doesn’t care what exactly damaged the property unless you can show negligence. So the fact that a storm damaged your home and some of the debris damaged your car does not make you or your insurer liable. That is simply storm damage encountered by your neighbor.

Otherwise everyone would be trying to trace every bit of storm debris to blame someone.

It is not your fault OP. Remember that. This is exactly why we have insurance. Do you think if it were reversed he would pay you?

Even if they don’t claim on their policy the wording on most renewals includes something to the effect of requiring notifying them of any losses, damage or incidents whether or not claims were made.
So, he will have to admit it anyway.

Thanks everyone your advice is very much appreciated. I'll go and speak with him now

We had this exact problem a few years ago - our car was damaged by our neighbours roof tiles coming off in a storm.

Long story short - it’s an ‘act of God’ in the eye of insurers so they will often not cover it. Our car insurance decided to honour it out of ‘good will’. Neighbour wasn’t co-operating with us and using her house insurance, so our car insurance agreed to sort it out for us, but then went on to claim it back from neighbour’s house insurance. It was out of our hands by that point.

8 k? Whole new car?