Insurance news
Get your home shipshape again
22 January, 2007
Getting your home repaired in the wake of last week’s storms should be top of your agenda, but it may actually be slipping down the ‘priority’ scale with each passing day
AA Home Insurance is urging customers to claim for any damage to their property, and get it repaired before another bout of stormy weather hits the British Isles.
In only 24 hours after Thursday’s gales, the AA had unsurprisingly received as many calls as they get in a normal week. Typical calls concerned emergency repairs to windows and roofs, structural damage to buildings as a result of low-flying trees and branches, roof and garden fence damage, and flooding.
The number of calls received to claim for damage to cars was also 50 per cent higher than on a normal weekday and was approaching 1,000 claims only 24 hours after the storm eased off. Most claims were because debris in all shapes and forms which had been lifted by the sheer force of the wind, smashing into their vehicle; including fence panels, wheelie bins, shopping trolleys and roof/wall panels from buildings.
Gerry Barrett, head of AA Home Insurance advises: “It’s important not to delay getting relatively minor damage repaired or made safe as a further gale of less severity than we’ve seen could result in existing damage made much worse – and a much larger insurance claim.
“Clearly insurance companies are experiencing an especially high volume of calls so please keep trying to get through. And once the weather has calmed sown it’s important to look for tell-tale signs of damage that you might not have noticed.”
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