Storm Damage and Home Insurance: What UK Policies Cover
UK buildings insurance normally covers roof damage caused by a storm and normally excludes gradual wear, poor maintenance and pre-existing defects. The Financial Ombudsman Service applies three tests to a disputed claim: was there a storm, is the damage consistent with storm damage, and were storm conditions the main cause. A dated photographic record of your roof helps you answer the third. No insurer's decision can be guaranteed in advance.
The phone starts ringing on the Sunday after a named storm. Ridge tiles off a gable in Wetherby, a felt roof lifted in Rothwell, slates in the back yard of a terrace in Beeston. The first question after “can you make it safe” is almost always the same one: will the insurance pay for this?
The honest answer is that it depends on three things, and one of them you can influence before the wind ever arrives.
What counts as a storm?
Insurers and the Financial Ombudsman Service work from a description rather than a single wind speed. The ombudsman describes a storm as involving violent winds, usually with rain, hail or snow, and accepts that extreme rain, hail or snowfall on its own can amount to a storm when enough of it falls in a short period.
Your policy may set its own threshold, often a gust speed. Read that clause before you claim, because it is the first thing the insurer will check.
The Met Office names storms when they have the potential to cause disruption or damage at amber or red warning level, and publishes the list for each season on its UK storm centre pages. A named storm on the date of the damage is useful evidence. It is not the only evidence, and unnamed weather can still meet the test.
What does a UK buildings policy usually cover?
Buildings cover is for the structure: roof, walls, windows, permanent fixtures, and usually outbuildings and boundary walls if the policy says so. After a storm, a typical policy would consider:
- Slates or tiles stripped off a slope by wind
- Ridge or verge tiles lifted and blown clear
- A flat roof covering peeled back or split by wind
- A chimney pot or stack brought down
- Damage from a tree or a neighbour’s aerial landing on the roof
- Water that entered through the resulting hole, which is usually a contents or buildings escape of water question depending on what got wet
What sits outside it is just as consistent across the market: gradual deterioration, wear and tear, lack of maintenance, defective workmanship and pre-existing damage. Most declined roof claims turn on one of those five.
Why do roof claims get declined?
The ombudsman sets out three questions it asks when it reviews a declined storm claim.
| Test | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Were there storm conditions on or around the date of the damage? | Weather data for your postcode on that date, which the insurer will pull |
| Is the damage consistent with storm damage? | Slates snapped and scattered reads differently from slates that slid off one at a time |
| Were the storm conditions the main cause of the damage? | Would a roof in sound condition have survived the same wind? |
The third is where roof claims usually fail. A ridge that was bedded in mortar that crumbled years ago, a verge with no pointing left, or a felt roof that was already blistered and split will be argued as a maintenance failure that the wind merely finished off.
The ombudsman’s guidance also makes clear that the burden sits with the insurer to prove an exclusion applies, for example with an inspection report, and that poor condition alone does not automatically mean the storm was not the cause. Each case turns on its evidence. That is why the evidence you hold matters.
Why a photographic record helps
If your only photographs are of a hole, you are arguing about the condition of a roof that no longer exists. If you have dated photographs from a survey six months earlier showing a tight ridge line, sound pointing and slates all present, you are arguing about what changed.
This is not a guarantee of anything. Insurers assess each claim on its facts and can still decline. It does move the conversation from opinion to record. Every survey we do produces photographs of each slope with a date on them, and we send them to you whether or not you go ahead with work. Keep them somewhere you can find them.
The same applies to maintenance receipts. A gutter clear, a ridge re-bed, a flashing renewal, all with dates and invoices, is a documented history of a maintained roof.
What to do in the first 48 hours
- Stay off the roof and keep everyone away from the area below it. Slates fall a second time.
- Photograph everything from the ground, including debris where it landed and any damage to the building below the roof.
- Make it safe. Insurers expect you to prevent further damage, and emergency attendance to sheet a slope is a normal cost. Ours runs £120 to £250 for an out of hours callout, offset against the repair.
- Call the insurer and open a claim before committing to a permanent repair. Ask whether they want to appoint a loss adjuster.
- Keep receipts for everything, including a hotel or a dehumidifier if the house is not liveable.
- Get a written report on the cause, with photographs, from whoever attends. Cause matters more than cost at this stage.
- Do not throw the broken material away until the claim is settled. Snapped slates and torn lead are evidence.
Is it worth claiming at all?
Look at the excess first. Buildings excesses commonly sit between £100 and £350, and storm or subsidence excesses are sometimes higher and set separately in the schedule. A slipped slate repair at £180 to £480 or a single ridge tile at £160 to £420 may sit close to or below the excess, and a claim will still show on your record and may affect the renewal premium.
A re-roof after a stack came through the slope is a different scale of loss and an obvious claim. Between the two, get a written quote first and then decide with a real number in front of you.
Who picks the roofer?
Usually you do. Some insurers push their own approved network, and you are generally entitled to get your own quotes and ask for a cash settlement instead. Check your policy wording, because a few products make the network compulsory. If the insurer’s figure will not cover a proper repair to the standard the roof needs, say so in writing and put your quote alongside it.
If the claim is declined and you think it is wrong, the insurer has to give you a final response, and the Financial Ombudsman Service will look at the case for free after that.
After the wind drops
Storm claims are won or lost on the condition of the roof before the storm. Mortar bedded ridge and verge details are the first thing to go in Pennine wind, and a mechanically fixed dry system removes that weak point for good. Our dry ridge and verge page explains how those systems work, and the Wetherby page covers the exposed plots where wind damage turns up most.