Reggie’s insurer declined his claim for accidental damage to his garage after he noticed cracks in his garage wall.
What happened
When Reggie discovered cracks in the structure of his garage, he was worried it might be subsidence. He contacted his home insurer and shared his concerns, and it sent out a surveyor.
This surveyor inspected the damage and agreed that the building had moved – but not because of subsidence. The surveyor actually thought the cause of the cracking was a lack of support to the property’s rear wall.
After getting advice from an engineer who agreed with the insurer’s surveyor, Reggie claimed for accidental damage. To him, ‘accidental’ meant something that happened by chance, not deliberately, which seemed like an accurate description of his situation.
Reggie’s insurer declined his claim. It said the policy defined accidental damage as “unforeseen physical damage caused suddenly”, and Reggie’s garage damage hadn’t happened suddenly.
Reggie disagreed. He said there’d been no sign of cracking when he was in the garage a week before.
Unhappy with his insurer’s response, he brought his complaint to us.
What we said
We checked Reggie’s policy documents and agreed that the insurer could use its own definition of accidental damage. We also looked at reports from the insurer’s surveyor and Reggie’s engineer.
Both experts said the lack of support to the back wall had caused the garage to move gradually over the course of months or years.
We recognised that the cracking might have appeared suddenly. But the definition in Reggie’s policy was about damage caused suddenly, not damage that appeared suddenly. We didn’t think the cracking counted as accidental damage, according to the policy definition.
Because of this, we couldn’t uphold Reggie’s complaint. We thought it was fair for the insurer to decline his claim. Though it’s worth saying that if the definition of accidental damage had been missing or worded differently, we might have made a different decision.