Insurance Claim

[Anodim]

Hi Guys,

Okay, heads up, I'm a self-builder, not a scaffolder! But I'd welcome a professional opinion please.

In the recent bad weather, we had a board blow off and damage some solar panels. Hey, sh*t happens, I'm not blaiming anyone in particular.
The bill for replacing the panels comes to just under £1000, so this will be an insurance claim. I'm just wondering whose insurance this should be claimed from?

The scaffolding was put up professionally, and just 3 days before the damage, there was an adjustment and the scaffolding was inspected and re-ticketed.
My builder who was on-site at the time specifically told the scaffolder to tie down the boards (some had blown off previously, but had caused no damage). Unfortunately, my builder had to leave and it turns out that the boards were not tied down as he had asked.
To complicate matters further, the guys who did the adjustment were sub-contracted from the main scaffolding company as they didn't have anyone available at the time...but I don't see how that should be my problem.

So my question is: Should I claim the cost of the replacement panels from the scaffolding company as they failed to secure the boards properly?

Your thoughts please.

Thanks.

 

[jonnyoneye]

Hi.
There is no statuary requirement to tie down scaffold boards erected as part of a scaffold unless they are 2.13m (7') or less in length.
It is of course good practice to do so particularly during winter months or if stormy weather is forecast but this often arrives during the life of the erected structure and cannot be predicted.
Unfortunately, unless you put the instruction to tie down the boards in writing to the originally contracted company, you probably cannot prove that they were instructed to do so and I suspect they will therefore deny that they ever were asked to do it and deny all liability.
My suggestion would be to try and agree a possibly 50/50 liability with them and accept that if you can get that (possibly knocked off the overall scaffold cost), you should accept it because otherwise I believe that you will have to accept full liability for the damage I'm afraid.
Golden rule: Put everything like this instruction in writing.
Good luck !

 

[Anodim]

Hi,

Thankyou for this.

Though the instruction was verbal, the owner of the scaffolding company did admit to me (via Whatsapp) that his sub-crontractor had been asked to tie down the boards and that he said that he had done so. They weren't. There is no evidence of any blue-rope on the adjusted area of the scaffolding.

I like your suggestion though, and we will approach the scaffolder with the suggestion that he cover our excess, assuming that we have to claim on our site insurance. We should be finished with our site insurance by July, so we don't need to worry about them inflating the premium due to a claim (I hope).

Thanks again!

 

[jonnyoneye]

If you have a WhatsApp message in writing from them confirming that they have received your instruction and had passed it on to their subcontractors to action, then I would suggest mentioning this to them together with photos of that area and any others altered at the time and tell them that it is obvious that this bit of the work was not carried out despite what the subbie claims and that ultimately if they can't get the subbie to pay up, they will have to and if they fail to then you will be forced to claim off your insurance but will hand over all the supporting evidence to your insurance to follow up their claim against his insurance provider.
Put it all nicely if it comes to this and see what he offers back. He may just agree with you and pay up or might try and reduce his losses by a say 50% offer. Then it's up to you to decide whether to go to the bother of a full claim or just accept half the cost in settlement.
Again, I wish you luck but I certainly wouldn't just accept all the cost if you have proof that you have acted properly in the first instance before the alterations were carried out.
Alternatively I suppose you still owe a bit for the scaffold and you could just withhold payment and explain why. This would mean that the contractor would then have to decide how to resolve the situation but as long as you have warned them why and shown them the evidence you have then they would be reluctant to take matters further and would at least come up with an offer if not the full claim.