Unassembled conservatory damaged in storm – is it contents or a building?

Buildings insurance Insurance

When a storm damaged David and Sues garage, this also damaged an unassembled conservatory. But their insurer said this was a building and wasnt covered in their policy.

 

What happened

David and Sue put in a claim to their insurer under their contents-only policy after their garage collapsed in a storm. Many of their items had been damaged that they kept in their garage.

The insurer agreed to pay for all the damaged items except a flat-pack conservatory. But the couple hadn’t assembled it yet. The insurer told David and Sue they considered this item to be a building. This would then be covered by its buildings policy, which the couple didn’t have.

What we said

We looked at all the evidence that David, Sue and the insurer gave us. We felt that the unassembled conservatory could be said to be part of the couples household contents. It hadn’t yet been made into an actual building, and was a collection of separate components, stored in boxes. So we asked the insurer to pay the claim.