Does Home Insurance Cover a Leaking Roof? What Decides the Claim

This guide sets out how insurers and the Financial Ombudsman Service tend to look at a roof-leak claim, so you can make the first phone call prepared. It can't tell you what your own policy says. Only your policy wording and your insurer can do that.

Sudden Damage and Slow Decline

Buildings insurance is written to pay out for events. A storm is one of the events nearly every policy lists. What a policy is not written to pay for is the normal ageing of a house: mortar that crumbles, felt that perishes, fixings that rust, a covering that has simply reached the end of its life. Policies usually exclude that in plain words, under a heading such as wear and tear, gradual deterioration or lack of maintenance.

So the question an insurer asks about a leak is not whether there is water in the bedroom. It is what made the roof fail, and when. A leak that began on a known night with a clear cause sits on one side of the line. A leak that has been building quietly for months sits on the other.

What Counts as a Storm

The Financial Ombudsman Service settles disputes between insurers and their customers, and it has published how it approaches storm claims. Its starting point is that "a storm generally involves violent winds, usually accompanied by rain, hail or snow".

The Ombudsman doesn't use one fixed wind speed to decide whether bad weather was a storm. It may consider where the wind sat on the Beaufort scale, but it says that is not the only factor. Many policies are more exact and quote their own thresholds for wind, rain, hail or snow. Look up the definitions section of yours, so you know which test your insurer will apply before you ring.

The Three Questions the Ombudsman Asks

When a customer complains that a storm claim was turned down, the Ombudsman works through three questions:

1. Were there storm conditions on or around the date the damage is said to have happened? 2. Is the damage consistent with damage a storm typically causes? 3. Were the storm conditions the main cause of the damage?

The first is a matter of weather records, not memory. The second question turns on the damage itself. Roof tiles lifted or missing, ridge tiles on the drive, flashing pulled away from a wall, or a felt covering torn back from an edge all fit the pattern of wind. The third question is where most arguments start, because it asks whether the storm did the damage or only exposed a problem that was already there. That depends on the roof's history, which is the subject of the next section.

The State of the Roof Before the Storm Counts

After you report a leak, the insurer may send a loss adjuster or ask for a roofer's report. Either way, someone will look at the roof and try to judge what it was like the week before. Signs of long-term decline include moss rooted between tiles, rusted nails and clips, mortar on ridges and verges that has clearly been loose for a long time, and a ceiling stain that has spread outwards in rings.

Two roofs on the same Telford estate show where the line falls.

The first is a flat roof on a garage. For a year, a pool of water has sat in the middle after every shower, because the deck has dipped and the water has nowhere to run. The felt under the puddle has softened and split, and now the garage leaks onto the car. That is ponding, and it is the textbook case of gradual damage. No single night caused it, and a wear-and-tear exclusion is written for exactly this kind of failure.

The second is a pitched roof of concrete interlocking tiles, the covering you typically see on estate housing. It was sound on Friday. That night a gale went through, and by Saturday morning a run of tiles near the verge was lying on the lawn and rain was dripping into the loft. The weather is on record, the damage looks like wind damage, and nothing suggests the roof was failing before. That is the textbook storm claim.

Real leaks are often less tidy. A gale can finish off a garage roof that was already ponding, and the insurer will then weigh how much of the failure came from each cause. Photos of the roof taken before any storm, or a roofer's note from an earlier visit, can carry real weight in that argument, so keep them if you have them.

The First 48 Hours

What you do in the two days after finding a leak shapes the claim that follows.

• Make it safe. Put buckets down, move furniture and belongings, and get a roofer to make the roof safe if tiles are loose or water is coming in fast. Don't climb up yourself.
• Photograph before anything moves. Inside and out: the ceiling, the loft, any tiles on the ground, and the roof from the street or an upstairs window. Keep the files with their dates.
• Write down the date and the weather. Note when you first saw water and what the weather was doing at the time.
• Call the insurer before permanent work. A temporary cover to stop more water getting in is one thing. A full repair before the insurer has seen the damage, or at least your photos and a report, can make the claim harder to prove.
• Keep every receipt. Tarpaulins, the make-safe visit, and anything you buy to limit the damage.
• Ask for the roofer's findings in writing. A short report saying what failed and what the roofer thinks caused it is stronger evidence than your own account of the night.

The Excess and Small Repairs

Every buildings policy has an excess, which is the part of each claim you pay yourself. Your policy schedule states the amount, and some policies set different excesses for different kinds of damage.

For a small roof repair, set the likely cost of the work against the excess before you claim. Where the two are close, a claim may give you very little back, and it is worth asking your insurer how a claim would affect your renewal. Where the damage is wide, with water through ceilings and a whole slope needing work, that is the situation the policy exists for.

If the Claim Is Refused

A refusal can be challenged, and challenging it costs nothing.

Start with the insurer. Complain in writing, explain why you believe a storm caused the damage, and send your photos, your note of the weather and the roofer's report. The insurer has up to 8 weeks to consider the complaint and give you its answer.

If you disagree with that answer, or 8 weeks pass without one, you can take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. It is free to use, and it looks at storm claims through the same three questions set out above.

General Information, Not Advice

This guide describes how UK buildings policies commonly treat roof leaks and how the Financial Ombudsman has said it looks at storm claims. Treat it as general information rather than advice about your policy or your claim. Policies are worded differently, and yours is the one that counts, so check your policy and speak to your insurer before you decide anything. Nothing on this page means a particular leak will or won't be paid for.

Getting Help in Telford

If a storm has damaged your roof, our storm damage repairs section explains how to get a local roofer out to make it safe and write down what failed. For leaks that have nothing to do with the weather, start with roof repairs. Roofers Telford passes your enquiry to an independent local roofing firm, which quotes you direct. Enquiries outside working hours get a call back the next working day.