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Insurance for solar panels

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:30 pm
by Chickenlady
Last night, as the wind was howling outside and sounding like an aircraft was about to land on our flat roof, I idly wondered what would happen if the solar panels took off. They aren't fitted onto a sloping roof, but are on a frame on the flat roof, as this enabled us to position them to get the most sun. And they are not actually attached to the roof at all, because this would have involved drilling into the felt and causing all kinds of possible problems to the room below (my bedroom!), so they are very heavily weighted down. As I write this I realise it sounds a distinctly dodgy arrangement, but it made sense when we had them fitted! And they have survived several quite bad wind storms so far.

If they did come off they wouldn't damage the roof as much as if they were attached I suppose, but there would be damage, both to the building and to the panels themselves. Would my buildings insurance cover this do you think? Has anybody else been sensible enough to ask this, or had to claim?

I tried to find out on my insurers website, but solar panels didn't seem to be mentioned at all.

Ta
Jane

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:47 pm
by Magpie
Possibly not relevant, being on the other side of the world from you, but when I got insurance for our caravan, I asked if our panels, which are mounted on the gound next to the caravan, were covered. I was told "yes", under the contents cover. So hopefully it would be the same for you.