Water damage, and the line policies draw

Sudden and accidental

The covered version is an event: a pipe bursts, a supply hose fails, a tank splits, an appliance overflows. Something that was working stops working, and water escapes as a result.

What is generally covered is the damage the water causes — floors, ceilings, walls, contents. What is often not covered is the failed component itself, on the reasoning that the policy insures damage rather than repairs.

Speed is the test rather than severity. A dramatic, expensive escape of water is usually a covered claim; a slow, cheap one frequently is not.

Frozen pipes

A pipe that freezes and splits is the winter version of that sudden escape of water. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, policies often cover the resulting water damage when frozen pipes burst, provided the homeowner has taken reasonable steps to stop them freezing.

That proviso is the part to read. Policies generally require the home to be kept at a minimum temperature, or the water supply shut off if the home is vacant. Where an insurer decides the plumbing was neglected, the damage from a burst pipe may not be covered.

The Insurance Information Institute's cold-weather advice is practical rather than contractual, and it lines up with those conditions:

• Keep the heating on, including while you are away
• In severe cold, keep water moving through pipes that are prone to freezing
• Ask someone to check the house regularly when nobody is home
• Before an extended absence, have the water system drained
• If a pipe does burst, turn the water off first

Gradual damage, and why it is excluded

Damage that developed over weeks or months — a seeping joint, a slow roof leak, condensation, rot, mould that grew from any of them — is generally excluded, and the exclusion is close to universal across standard forms.

The reasoning is that gradual damage is a maintenance outcome rather than an insurable event. Insurance is priced for the unforeseen, and a leak that has been running for months was, in principle, findable.

This is where most disputed claims sit, and the evidence usually decides it. Staining, warping and mould growth all indicate how long water has been present, and an adjuster is reading exactly that.

The two endorsements worth knowing about

Two common gaps are closed by endorsement rather than by the base policy, and both are inexpensive relative to what they cover.

• Water backup — damage from water backing up through drains or sewers, or from a failed sump pump, which the base policy generally excludes entirely
• Service line cover — damage to the buried pipes and cables running from the street to the house, which are usually the homeowner's responsibility and are usually not covered as part of the dwelling

Flood is a different thing entirely

Flood — surface water arriving from outside, whether from a river, from the sea, or from rain that has nowhere to go — is excluded on standard homeowners policies and is not what any of the above covers.

The distinction the policy draws is where the water came from rather than how much of it there is. Water arriving from inside the house is a water damage question; water arriving from outside and across the ground is a flood question.

Flood is covered separately, including through the federal National Flood Insurance Program.

What to do when it happens

Stop the water first, then protect the property from further damage. Most policies require you to take reasonable steps to prevent a loss getting worse, and the cost of doing so is often itself covered.

Photograph everything before you clear it, including the source. A claim about whether damage was sudden is much easier to make with pictures of the failed component than with a description of it.

Keep what failed. The hose, the joint, the section of pipe — physical evidence is frequently the difference between a covered claim and a disputed one.