Nov
29
2006
The Great Water Damage Debate
Author: Valeria WeberKatrina’s aftermath has generated an enormous debate over where storm damage insurance ends and flood damage insurance begins. In some areas, there is also the prospect of basement flooding due to septic or sewer backup. Insurance companies are meticulous in differentiating among the three.
Essentially, coverage is determined by how the water enters your home. If it enters from your roof, that is covered under homeowner’s insurance. If waters swell on your street and flow into your house horizontally, it’s covered under flood insurance. If it comes from the bottom up, or through your basement drain or sump pump, typically that would be covered under a special sewer-drain backup endorsement.
Sometimes it’s not so black and white, and an insurance adjuster will have to determine whether the damage is covered under flood insurance or the sewer-drain backup endorsement.
More after the jump…
April 17th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
It\’s not clear from many insurance cos wordings. When it comes to adjusting, they will try their best to split hairs, and often courts would side with them. One ins co claimed that backup sewer water damage referred to only damage caused by water in the sewer, not the sewage! (apparently where the execs live sewage is drinking quality, maybe it is for them..) Another co which starts with \’Me\’ and ends in \’e\’, has sump pump water backup as an optional coverage, which it sells to gullible customers as \’ covers your basement\’, but when you call them later they will quite some rulebook which says \’water entering from ground or from under the foundation not convered! (aha, so the sump pump is for catching water from the sky then?) And what do you mean by \’backed up sump pump? So they cover for this fictional backed up sump pump alone!.