Quote:
Originally Posted by ralphie250
on sunday me and a buddy of mine were on my back deck and it collapsed. we were 15 feet in the air. crushed my ac unit banged me up pretty bad, i ended up with a concusion liots of scrapes and bruises and a sprained ankle. homeowners insurance came out and inspected it and told me that the claim would be denied due to when the builder built the house (in 1984) they did not put flashing between the house and the deck so the rotted wood is not a covered part (found out they used railroad spikes to hold the deck to the house). Is there a way to argue this?
I landed between the house, and the deck. The grill slid down the deck and smacked me on the head and knocked me out for about 45 seeconds or so. my buddy got away with a small scratch on his back. |
I asked my homeowners agent about this and he says that your problem here is that your deck failed because of gradual deterioration. Insurance does not cover, and is not meant to cover, failure due to gradual deterioration. A simple example would be if the shingles blow off your roof in a thunderstorm and, as a result, you have water damage inside, your insurance covers that.
If your roof leaks because it has worn out from being exposed to the elements for the last thirty years, you do not have an insurance claim for water damage.
The rotten wood is obvious evidence of gradual deterioration, whether you knew about it or not. That's a maintenance problem, not an insurance claim. My agent didn't think that the "railroad spikes" affected the situation one way or the other. They held the deck in place for many years, until the wood rotted away around them. Given proper maintenance, your deck would probably still be standing.
He also said that he would bet that, had your deck blown down in a windstorm, your insurance would have paid your claim without question.
Lindy