‘Lost furniture worth thousands of dirhams in rains’: Why residents should insure personal belongings

The recent rains in the UAE have resulted in some unexpected challenges for residents. From leaking ceilings, dripping windows and peeling off paint, to damages to personal items due to flooding, the rains caused reasonable damage to some homes and properties.

It’s a wake-up call, noted Jordanian expat Basit, 35, a resident of a premium building in Downtown Dubai. He said: “We were not able to sleep peacefully because of the rain.”

Basit recalled that during the recent spell of rain, all his windows and facade side ceiling began to leak. “Water entered my apartment from the ceiling. I paid more than Dh2 million for this apartment and I was not expecting this. To my horror, my living room was dripping from all sides of the façade as the rain direction was towards the windows and it came straight in through the façade gaps,” he shared.

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“I lost three carpets and the furniture in my living room was damaged due to rain water,” Basit, who moved to Dubai two years ago, added.

“But when I reached out to the developer, I was told they can only fix the source of the water leakage such as seal the facade from both inside and outside and the damage to my goods are not covered under the building insurance. For any claims to damaged items inside my apartment, I should have taken a home contents insurance,” he ruefully added.

Basit is now talking to different insurance companies to get home contents insurance and also getting a maintenance company to get his apartment checked for any possible gaps or waterproofing issues that can be covered as a precaution.

Waterfalls from the façade

Echoing a similar experience, Tora, a European expat living in JLT, said: “ I was sleeping when I suddenly heard water falling and as I rushed towards the sound of the water, I saw that water was literally falling from the façade frame into my bedroom, which was partially flooded. I immediately unplugged the TV behind where the leakage started and removed all the furniture from that side. However, since the flooring was wooden, my floor had all swelled up and the skirting was out.”

Tora said she complained about the façade leakage to the management and they said they would fix it and also change the damaged flooring but the process has been very slow. “Apart from my wooden flooring, my TV and tables have also got damaged but that the building will not cover as they state they only cover what is included in the building insurance and my personal home items are not covered under it. I have been advised to opt for contents insurance by a few friends so I am looking into it now,” she added.

Can insurance help?

Yes! In the UAE, the property developer, remains responsible only for the common areas which they maintain, and will mostly have a building insurance cover against any damages caused to the structure, such as electric circuits, or other physical aspects of the apartment that have been damaged by the rain water or flooding.

However, the contents inside the house/apartment are not covered by building insurance. For this, it is important to have home content and personal belongings coverage.

Therefore, in order to provide adequate cover, a tenant should take out his own insurance policy with individual cover for his personal belongings.

Neeraj Gupta, CEO at Policybazaar.ae, told Khaleej Times: “Basic contents in any home include furniture, fixtures, kitchen equipment, crockery, cutlery, linen, curtains or whatever a household can afford.

He explained: “The value of contents in a home can go from a few thousands to a few million dirhams. These contents are exposed to vagaries and perils of different nature. Home contents may not only get damaged by fire, flood, or storms, but there could be burglary or theft that could lead to loss of such items.

Tenants’ responsibilities

Tenants are responsible for their personal belongings along with any home contents that they bring in to the rented building or apartment. Home content includes any of the furniture, electronics, appliances, art, and decorative items. Personal belongings coverage, generally, includes the items that one usually takes out of the home and are more mobile in nature such as jewellery, mobile phones, laptops, watches, clothes, etc.

“We have seen incidents of fire in Dubai where people have lost their entire life earnings, so in such cases there are insurance policies available which can take care of such kind of incidents,” Gupta noted.

Insurance cost

According to Gupta, home contents can be insured at a very nominal cost. “Normally, for standard household contents, insurance can be done at a cost of around Dh500-1000. The assets can be covered in the risk of fire, accidental damage, damage to glass fixed in the house, damage to contents, theft, any injury to domestic house mates or servants. These are covered under the domestic package policy. And since these policies are package policies, the total premium after adding up other sections may go little high.”

Another insurance expert added that it is important to know the details of the insurance cover so do not skip reading the read the fine print of any insurance policy to ensure it includes weather-related events such as flooding, fire, hailstorms etc. for filing a claim as coverage.

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