EDITED for Additional Info:
We had a leak in our upstairs shower that turned into a ruined ceiling, and very likely a lot of water damage in the walls from that water leaking over time. I need to make a claim for this damage, but the problem is this: the incident occurred within my current policy’s mandated deadline of a year to report (basically, it has not been a year since this occured), however… while we are still trying to capture all the information and estimate when this occurred, there is a chance that this occured right as our former policy was expiring, before our current policy with this new, different company was active.
As a note: We may have evidence, as I believe there were photos taken of the incident occuring, but we did not recieve any estimates or reports, explained at the end.
Our previous insurer did not renew our policy, and there were a few days in which we were negotiating before we got onto this new policy. Since we do not have a policy with the new company that extends back to those dates, I worry we may have no way to receive compensation if the damages happened then. Do home insurance policies have something like prior events coverage? Should we try to file with our previous insurance company even though we are no longer with them because it may have occurred under their policy, rather than the new company? Should the new company still handle these damages? Are we just out of luck here? I want to do everything I can.
For why we did not report the issue sooner, we are new and inexperienced homeowners, and admittedly we did not think this issue would involve our home insurance because our warranty was the one that handled plumbing. We did not consider interior damage, and were attempting to save up for repairs ourselves. But, after having things evaluated now, we realize the severity is much greater than we thought, and our insurance may be able to help (while our warranty may cover the actual plumbing).
