A complainant who says his broker did not inform him about a 72-hour flood exclusion upon policy inception has lost his claims dispute over damage to his caravan.  

The insured purchased the caravan policy on March 1 last year at 5:04pm after contacting his broker to ask whether he would be immediately covered.   

The man lodged a claim on March 18 after reporting flood damage to the van, which he says occurred on March 8.  

But Suncorp declined the claim after engaging with an engineering and hydrology consultant, referred to as MC, who said the vehicle had been inundated on March 4 at around 12pm.  

The insurer says the policy had a 72-hour exclusion from policy inception for flood damage, unless the claimant had purchased the vehicle the same day the policy started, or had a previous policy and cover was continuous. 

MC highlights water levels from a nearby recording station that show the flooding peaked at 8.33m AHD at 12pm on March 4, which would have been enough to inundate the caravan. The consultants noted that there had been a second peak of flooding on March 9, in which flood levels reached 10.68m AHD.  

The policyholder points to drone imagery from 10am on March 4 of a nearby bridge that he says was not flooded despite being at a similar floor level as his site.  

However, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) was not convinced, saying it was unfair to compare the heights of the two sites and highlighting that the imagery was taken two hours before the flooding peaked.  

Instead, AFCA relied on a report from the complainant’s consultants, which states that the caravan’s site floor level is between 7.44m AHD and 7.48m AHD.  

AFCA notes that the consultants did not provide the caravan’s floor level but says, based on photographic imagery, it appeared to be somewhere between 0.6m to 0.7m above the site’s level, in the range of 8.04m AHD to 8.18m AHD.  

It says it was satisfied that the available information showed that the caravan had been flooded on March 4 at around noon and that the policy exclusion had been “clear and unambiguous” not to cover the damage if it occurred within 72 hours of inception.  

The ruling did not accept the insured’s position that the policy had been arranged earlier than 5:04pm and should have been covered from 12:01am on March 1, saying previous communications “cannot reasonably be considered acceptance of and/or commencement of the contract”.  

AFCA also acknowledges that the complainant says he was not informed of the 72-hour exclusion but says this is a separate matter.  

“The complainant arranged the policy through his broker and the insurer is not responsible for the actions or inaction of the complainant’s broker,” AFCA said.  

“The complainant is entitled to seek his own independent legal advice in this regard.”  

Click here for the ruling.