Have you updated your insurance to cover your solar and inverter installations?
Category Property News
My fellow South Africans!!!
Who ever thought we would have to generate our own electricity.
It seemed essential to business, and later to householders, to invest in petrol driven generators when we first encountered BO(black outs) some 10-15 years ago. This quickly lead to the "dog on leash" era, an inverter plus car battery on a trolley with an extension cord.
We've then progressed to much larger inverters with lithium batteries, wired into Distribution boards, some systems being large and expensive enough to cater for entire household needs ... and all the time Eskom charges increased exponentially!
With the increase in loadshedding and the warnings of grid failure and rising usage costs, many home owners are now turning to solar as a means of keeping the lights on in spite of ESKOM's inadequacies.
The move is sensible and, if it is affordable, it can ease most, if not all of the pressure of loadshedding and can provide a sense of comfort that all will be well if the power grid does fail at some point.
Have you taken account of the cost of any form of installation and adjusted your sum insured to cater for it?
There are other issues which must be considered when doing solar installations as these can have an effect on your insurance and whether your insurer will provide cover or not.
Some insurers have developed solar specific policies and others have put out advisory notes on what they require in order for them to settle claims, and while it is always advisable to check with your insurer or broker, the general rule is that your solar system will be covered under your home owners policy provided the sum insured is adequate to include it.
The basic cover granted is for Fire, Storm, Hail and Impact. These are the main areas of risk for anything on the outside of your building, but as we live in South Africa, there is also the theft aspect, and this might not always be an automatic inclusion in your policy. All Homeowners policies provide theft cover, but this is often limited to fixtures and fittings inside the building as the insurer requires there to be signs of forcible entry into the building. Solar panels are on the outside and in these instances would not enjoy the cover for theft.
If theft of fixtures and fittings on the outside of the building is not covered, you still have a few options as most insurers will have decided on how they can accommodate this. It could be by way of a solar installation section, an all risks section or an extension to the home owners section, but your insurer will almost certainly be able to help. The most important thing is not to assume you have cover, but to rather get confirmation that theft cover of solar panels is included in your cover.
The other area of insurance to check is whether you have cover for accidental damage. Again most homeowners policies provide this as a matter of course and most body corporate policies provide a limited amount of accidental damage cover, but this is not always the case. Accidental damage is any accidental damage to the solar system which is not covered in one of the other sections of the policy, for example if a tree falls onto your roof and damages the solar panels, this would normally be insured under the buildings section, but if a child playing on the roof steps on a panel, this would not necessarily be covered unless your policy is on an all risks basis or includes a measure of accidental damage. Again it is always best to ask the question.
Homeowners insurance is one of the least expensive forms of cover and you don't want to be underinsured , facing the possibility of Average being applied whereby any Home owners claim is adjusted by the percentage of underinsurance. All risks cover, if it becomes necessary, is more expensive but would mean that claims which might fall under this category are honoured by the Insurer.
In the past if you stayed in a rented property, it was difficult to get insurance on any fixtures which belonged to you as these would not fall under a household contents policy. This has now been amended and most insurers will provide cover for tenants fixtures and fittings at the premises where they reside. This allows for the insurance of solar systems at rented premises. Ask your insurer or broker about this as it is now possible to insure these fixtures and fittings which belong to you.
The golden rule with insurance is always provide more information than you feel is necessary. Any material non-disclosure can result in your claim being rejected. As an absolute minimum you must be able to provide your insurer with the certificate of compliance (COC) for the installation of and the electrical work done on your solar installation. This is a basic policy requirement i.e. there is a requirement to be able to produce a valid COC if called upon, not only in the case of alternative energy installations.
We would recommend that you consult your insurance broker or Insurer should you have any concerns with regards your own system coverage.
Author: Gavin George