Couple gets paid after water buffalo fall into Essex pool | essex

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A essex The couple have spent 10 months seeking compensation after 18 water buffalo stampeded through their garden, eight of them taking a morning dip in their new pool.

Andy and Lynette Smith, who are retired, say their garden and swimming pool were ruined after the animals, weighing around 600kg each, left a rare breed farm and onto their property, causing value of damage. of more than £25,000.

Eight of them ended up falling into the £70,000 pool, causing a stampede that destroyed fences and flower beds. The animals were rescued unharmed by the farmer.

The incident occurred when an electric fence failed last July, allowing the herd to breach a wooden fence and hedge that separated their field from the Smiths’ garden.

“When my wife went to make her morning tea, she looked out the kitchen window and saw eight buffalo in the pool,” said Andy Smith. “She called 999 and was told that the fire department did not accept fake calls. It was necessary to persuade them to take us seriously. When they arrived, one of the buffalo, scared by their high visibility vests, headed straight for them.”

The farmer was called from next door and helped the animals out of the water.

Water buffalo, also known as Asiatic buffalo, can reach over 6 feet in height and males have horns up to 5 feet long. In the wild, they spend much of their time submerged in the muddy waters of tropical forests.

The Smiths were baffled as to how the animals ended up in their pool until they examined recordings from a CCTV camera in their garden. The footage shows the buffalo roaming the garden early on a Sunday morning. One stepped on the solid deck of the pool and fell through it, sending others running across the grass. Over the next 15 minutes, seven more animals fell into the pool, turning the water from clear to pitch black.

“The buffalo are too heavy and the porcelain tiles around the pool were slippery so they lost their grip and once they were in they couldn’t get out,” Smith said. “The previous afternoon, we had organized a pool party for our young grandchildren and their friends. If the invasion had happened hours before, it could have been very serious.”

The farm’s insurer, NFU Mutual, accepted liability but failed to reach a settlement for nearly a year.

“It took them 15 weeks to send out a round of advisers and almost six months to offer a sum that falls short of the two quotes they themselves obtained by more than £8,000,” Smith said. “We accept that they deal with claims far more serious than a damaged swimming pool, but their lack of communication has caused us countless sleepless nights.

“This pool was our retirement luxury that we bought when I sold the business, which I spent years building. It was earned with a lot of sweat and work, but after the buffalo swam, it was losing 75 gallons a day and was unusable.”

However, after being contacted by The Guardian, the insurer eventually agreed to cover the full repair bill of £25,000.

A spokesperson for NFU Mutual said: “We apologize for the delay in paying this claim, and in particular the initial wait for an inspector’s visit, which took too long and fell short of our usual standards. We have a duty to all our members to make sure we validate the cost of the claims, and in this case, we needed to get more assurance on the costs involved in repairing the damage.”