I’m siding with the Manager.
Our SM usually makes insurance claims without informing the Committee. He sees it as his job when he judges that a claim is appropriate and, according to our strata agreement, he is allowed to make that judgement.
It doesn’t matter HOW the damage to the common property happened, the OC must repair it. The OC can pursue cost recovery if it so chooses. In the case of accidental damage to common property this would be usually though an insurance claim.
As the whole building by law must be insured against accidental damage, a lot owner can request the OC to submit a claim for any accidental building damage they are responsible for and the OC must oblige or risk being taken to VCAT (you appear to be in Victoria). It is after all, every owner’s building insurance policy too. The insurance company can then chase the person that caused the damage if they so choose. Whether the work on the roof was approved or not by the OC is likely to be irrelvant – if it was accidental that would be enough to be covered according to my OC’s insurance policy.
The OC can however charge the lot owner any insurance excess. VCAT has ruled on this – the OC generally pays any excess, but if a lot owner/resident/guest or a lot’s private property caused the damage, the lot owner can be (in fact should be) charged the excess. I suspect the OC could also charge the owner for the full cost of repairs if the whole claim was refused by the insurance company.
And as for the argument that too many insurance claims could increase an OC’s insurance premiums – it seems there’s not too much an OC can do about that. In reality, so our SM tells me, the insurance companies tend to increase the excess amounts rather than the premium. This excess can be charged to the lot owner if they caused the damage.