Zena’s buildings insurer declined her claim for damage from a burst pipe even though she’d been in hospital when it happened.
What happened
Zena, an elderly woman, was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital. She ended up spending more than a year away from home. During that time, she didn't make any arrangements to have someone go to her home and check on it for her.
When she returned, she found out that her home had been damaged because some water pipes had frozen and burst. She put in a claim with her home insurer, but it was declined because she'd left her property unoccupied for more than 30 days.
Zena complained to her insurer, explaining that she’d been unwell and had spent time in hospital. Her insurer stuck with its decision to decline the claim. Unhappy with this response, she came to us.
What we said
Speaking to Zena, we learned that she had regular visits from family and friends while she was in the hospital. But she never asked any of these people to go and check on her property.
When she left the hospital, she stayed with her daughter for a while before moving back home. She never asked her daughter to check on her property either.
Though we were sympathetic to her situation, we couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d left the property unattended for much longer than 30 days. This led directly to the damage and worsened the impact of it.
We didn’t think she’d done enough to make sure that the property was looked after while she was away. We decided that the insurer had been reasonable when it rejected Zena’s claim, and we didn’t uphold her complaint.