Question About Covering Neighbor's Damage

[rockthecasbah12]

I have a question about how homeowner's insurance would handle the following situation I am involved in.

We have had water leaking through the walls of our house only on one side that is facing our neighbor's house. Our houses are about 4 feet apart and the same height. We have had our roof and gutters both inspected and fixed, but continue to get water. We were told by a masonry that only this one side of our house needs repointed, and it is because he said water is constantly running down it, pulling the mortar out from between the bricks. Since we have had our gutter looked at, he said it is most likely our water rolling off of our neighbors roof and onto our brick wall.

No one lives in the house beside us. Someone had purchased it to use as rental property, and rarely shows up to the house to check on it. I highly doubt they would willingly submit the insurance claim if I could get ahold of them. I understand I will probably have to sue them in order to move forward. Would I be suing him or his insurance company? Is this going to be worth my time at all?

 

[xrac]

I have a question about how homeowner's insurance would handle the following situation I am involved in.

We have had water leaking through the walls of our house only on one side that is facing our neighbor's house. Our houses are about 4 feet apart and the same height. We have had our roof and gutters both inspected and fixed, but continue to get water. We were told by a masonry that only this one side of our house needs repointed, and it is because he said water is constantly running down it, pulling the mortar out from between the bricks. Since we have had our gutter looked at, he said it is most likely our water rolling off of our neighbors roof and onto our brick wall.

No one lives in the house beside us. Someone had purchased it to use as rental property, and rarely shows up to the house to check on it. I highly doubt they would willingly submit the insurance claim if I could get ahold of them. I understand I will probably have to sue them in order to move forward. Would I be suing him or his insurance company? Is this going to be worth my time at all?

First you need to prove that the water damage is due to water coming off your neighbor's roof. You would need to actually watch during times of heavy rain to see what occurs. I would take pictures to document the problem. If you can document that this is the cause of the problem you can then go at this in two different ways.

You can contact your neighbor (go to the court house and get the information if you need to) and see if the neighbor will turn it over to their insurance company. If this is unsuccessful then I would attempt to file a claim with my own insurance company. The theory here is that you would pay the deductible and then your insurance company would subrogate against your neighbors to collect what they payout plus your deductible.

I am not a P&C agent so someone please correct me if I am wrong but this is how I would approach it based upon what I know. In any case I would discuss this with my agent.

 

[AZInsurance1]

You need to prove your neighbor was negligent.

 

[NCAgent]

First you need to prove that the water damage is due to water coming off your neighbor's roof. You would need to actually watch during times of heavy rain to see what occurs. I would take pictures to document the problem. If you can document that this is the cause of the problem you can then go at this in two different ways.

You can contact your neighbor (go to the court house and get the information if you need to) and see if the neighbor will turn it over to their insurance company. If this is unsuccessful then I would attempt to file a claim with my own insurance company. The theory here is that you would pay the deductible and then your insurance company would subrogate against your neighbors to collect what they payout plus your deductible.

I am not a P&C agent so someone please correct me if I am wrong but this is how I would approach it based upon what I know. In any case I would discuss this with my agent.

That sounds about right.

Just in case the context clues didn't help: Subrogation basically means suing the other insurance company for payment when yours paid out and it didn't need to. It is more of a convenience thing to allow things to go by faster and get the damage repaired first and then get payment afterwards. So if my company fixes damage done by you and your company should be paying, then your company is being subrogated by MY insurance company.

Proof is definitely going to help here. Having a statement by the professional who talked to you also wouldn't be bad to have either. A claims adjuster and your agent are going to be the best people to talk about this.