Home insurance question - 400m of a body of water

[Nohotdog4me]

*400 m from a body of water.

Filling in an insurance quote and I am being asked this question “is your home within 400m of a body of water?”

My neighbour has a swimming pool. Is a swimming pool a “body of water” for the purposes of home insurance?

thanks

Erm no.

No, it's a flooding question.

Thanks - I wanted to check because I thought “body of water” would have included pools/ hot tubs etc.

No, just lakes and the sea.

Rivers as well I suppose ?

And them.

It also covers underground water and water courses. It is a difficult question to honestly answer.
I've seen a policy not pay out because of a ground spring in another garden.

Couldn’t a pool overflow and spill over into my garden / house?

Maybe I am just over thinking this.

Yes, but you could claim from their insurance if it was a swimming pool. I don't think anyone is responsible for insuring rivers or the sea! So your own insurance would have to cough up if there was a tsunami or a huge flood from a nearby river so they want to know if you are living right alongside.

Thanks - I didn’t think of it like that.

I agree that it's a difficult question. We have a tiny stream about 10 m beyond the end of our garden, so it's clear we should answer yes to this question.

However for this stream to cause flooding of our house it would be after an unimaginable disaster that would leave a major city at the bottom of a 200 metre deep lake as we're up hill from the stream and the city, and you know, gravity.

So I answer no (we've had two insurance claims paid, one for storm damage to the roof and the other for a shed burglary so it seems unlikely that this makes our insurance void).

Sounds like a stupid question to me.

Half the country probably lives within that distance of some sort of stream or drainage ditch and often people don't know where they are as many of them can be fully underground in urban areas.

I find it strange that insurance companies don't use your address to ascertain this information for themselves. It seems like it's deliberately there as a 'gotcha' to homeowners. Why is the onus on homeowners to provide this information when it may not be immediately accessible and insurance companies probably have easier access to it?

It is a clever question. Answer no and if you flood you won't be insured - so a good win for the insurance company.

@Bjorkdidit yes insurance fine for other things but if you do get flooded you won't be covered.

They can punch your address into the environment agency flood maps and get a good idea of the flooding risk automatically. There is no need for them to ask these sorts of questions, which to me are pretty much irrelevant anyway as flooding is not just dependent on proximity to water but also on the shape of the land inbetween, as others have already pointed out.

It's a stupid question because if someone asked me that I would say "define body of water" which would no doubt keep a team of people on the runaround for weeks.

Plus I would just change to an insurer that didn't ask such questions, as it would be clear to me that this insurer was willing to try to use ambiguity to avoid paying out claims - and if they are trying it on with this sort of stuff who knows what else they would do to try to avoid payout on other issues.

I would actually rather pay more and have some confidence that an insurer was actually going to pay out.

No it's clever, because most people wouldn't do what you did. They just said no and then render themselves uninsured against flooding which saves the company thousands.

Saga asked me this question, I refused to answer and got insurance elsewhere.

Out of interest, I put my mum's postcode into a radius checker. She's within 400m of a river and a canal but she's high up on the other side of the valley. There's no way she's at risk of flooding from either of those. And yet, if asked on a form, she'd have to say 'yes'. The question takes no account of topography or any other nuances.

Do all insurers ask this question? I know it's included on the comparison sites but wondering if on the specific sites whether some insurers don't ask.

No, not all insurers ask this question, but if they do you have to be accurate or you risk invalidating your policy if it floods. (Some insurers will still pay out if you can show it isn't related, but others don't)

In this case she should speak to her insurer - some won't insure, others pass onto underwriters who will look into it and realise that she is high up and therefore it isn't an issue.

A hot tub is not a body of water!

Good question—generally, insurers are referring to natural bodies of water like lakes, rivers, or the ocean, not private swimming pools. But it’s always best to check with the insurer directly just to be sure, since policies can vary