Home owner - malicious property damage by neighbour

Hello All,

The neighbor living behind me threw a rock and broke our bedroom and tool shed window. Seems like he was high on drugs. He also threw mud and soiled all our clothes on our clothes line. Cops were called and the offender is on the run, with cops "trying" to arrest him for the last 3 days.

Anyway, I called up Allianz who had me call O'Brien glass. They estimated $800 all up including fly-screens. Now. Allianz inform me that I have $500 excess and it will not be waived even though I can provide them with the police Event number, the first and last name of the neighbor. I have not yet read the fine print but am looking for some quick advice on this matter. Specifically, do I just cop the excess -or- get it fixed on my own. I thought: for malicious damage, when am not at fault and can give insurance the details of the offender, my excess would be waived.

What are my options?

Thanks.
 
I thought: for malicious damage, when am not at fault and can give insurance the details of the offender, my excess would be waived.

Why do you think this? Does your policy state this? Storm damage, for example, obviously isn't anyone's fault, but you still pay the excess.
 
thats how car insurance works but home insurance seems to be a different beast from my experience. you need to pay excess for each event and sometimes extra excesses and even multiple excesses for the same damage in different areas as they can classify them as seperate events.

strange I know but it should be all clearly specfied in you PDS or Schedule for your insurance product.
 
With a $500 excess you might find that you can get the windows repaired for a lot less the Obriens charge.

Normally there are glass repairers who advertise in your local paper who are a 1/3 of the price of the bigger names in the industry.

Just make sure that they replace like with like - as in the same thickness of glass. I assume that as they were standard windows there is nothing special about the glass.

Cheers
 
You will need to follow the neighbour for the payment of the difference through the courts.

If he is on benefits wear the costs as the time and effort for the $5 a week payment will not be worth it.
 
Yeah OBriens etc are $$. Find a smaller independant glazier. Then lodge a case with the small claims court to recover the cost from the neighbour.
 
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