Madam, – As a retired loss adjuster with over 40 years experience handling property damage claims on behalf of the insurance industry, I am dismayed by the prevailing tendency of insurers to turn down perfectly genuine claims on the flimsiest of pretexts, in the hope that they won’t be pursued.
I’ve come across many examples of this in recent years, and the current media coverage of snow damage claims has prompted me to put pen to paper in the hope of cutting through some of the confusion.
I have handled many claims for damage to buildings and their contents caused by the weight and movement of accumulated snow. They were invariably paid by the insurer, unless it could be shown that the real cause was normal deterioration, weathering or old age, eg corroded eaves guttering, rotted fascia boards or perished roofing felt. Even then, damage caused internally by snowmelt was usually paid for.
Household insurance policies cover damage caused by either “accidental damage” or specified perils including “storm”, subject to a number of exclusions specifically noted in the policy – examples being frost, damage to fences or gates, settlement or shrinkage, and wear and tear. You will not find an exclusion of damage by snow. This is an important step in the validation of your claim – snow damage is not specifically excluded by the terms of the contract.
An accidental damage policy is more expensive and wider in scope than one covering specific perils such as fire, storm, flood, stealing, etc. But what exactly is meant by accidental damage? You'll find that the policy does not assign any particular meaning to the adjective "accidental", which must therefore be given its ordinary, everyday meaning. The Irish Supreme Court has accepted that an "accident" is "an unintended and unexpected occurrence which produces hurt or loss". Clearly, the damage by snow described by several callers to Joe Duffy on RTÉ's Livelinefalls within this definition, and it is beyond doubt that such damage would be covered by an accidental damage policy.
But what if your policy just covers specified perils, including storm? The policy does not define the word “storm”, which must therefore be given its everyday meaning. Many dictionaries define “storm” as an atmospheric disturbance characterised by strong wind and usually accompanied by rain, hail or snow. But the word has a very broad range of meaning, including “any heavy fall of snow, rain or hail” (yourdictionary.com). And the composite word “snowstorm” is defined by Oxford Dictionaries Online as “a heavy fall of snow, especially with a high wind”.
The approach of all the insurers for whom I acted over the years was to treat snow events such as we have experienced as a type of storm, and therefore covered by the policy. According to the Beaufort Wind Force Scale, a “storm” is a Force 10 wind of between 89 and 102 kilometres per hour. But for an insurer to defend a claim on this basis would be perverse, and I’m convinced that such a defence would be rejected out of hand.
There is an important rule of law called the contra proferentemrule of construction, which provides that any ambiguity in a legal document must, generally, be construed against the author of that document. This principle has been affirmed time and again by the Irish Superior Courts.
Thus, in the event of a dispute over the meaning of storm, I feel that the Court would be very likely to rule in favour of a policyholder claiming for damage caused by disturbed weather conditions characterised by heavy snowfall, particularly if of a degree of severity seldom experienced in this country. – Yours, etc,