Does Home Insurance Cover Water Damage To Your Indiana Home?

5/15/2020 (Permalink)

When water damage happens, most people are so upset and frustrated that they don’t think about whether the water damage will be covered by their homeowner's insurance. In this blog, we will help answer the question of whether home insurance covers water damage and if it does, does it cover all water damage.

Sudden Water Damage

If you wake up the next morning after a storm rolls through Indiana and discover your basement is flooded, you will want to do two things. Call your insurance agent to start a claim and call SERVPRO of Indianapolis West to extract the water and repair the damage done. 

With sudden water damage like that from a sump pump gone bad, a busted water pipe, or an overflowing toilet or tub; most homeowners insurance policies will cover the water damage. Sudden water damage is water damage that is discovered quickly rather than water damage that has been occurring over months or years. 

With sudden water damage, your home insurance will most likely help cover any damage to the home structure like flooring, walls, ceilings, pipes, and more. The insurance will also most likely cover any damage to property like furniture, electronics, clothes, toys, and appliances. 

With most homeowners' policies, there is a deductible that the homeowner must pay before coverage kicks in. There also may be coverage limits. That is why it’s important to call your home insurance company right away to get a claim started and to answer any questions you may have about what is covered and what is not. The professionals at SERVPRO of Indianapolis West will also be able to help with communicating with your insurance agent as they have years of experience working with pretty much every insurance company out there. We know what info they need in order to get the cleanup process started right away. 

The last area that your homeowner's insurance may cover is sudden leaking from plumbing. If your toilet or tub overflows, then your insurance will most likely cover it. If a pipe bursts or comes loose and leaking water is discovered with hours and sometimes days, your insurance may cover it. If the water leak occurs and you stop the leak but don’t report the damage quickly within hours and days, you may be on the hook to cover the damage. Again, it’s a good idea to ask your insurance company about the specifics of what type of water damage they cover and how soon you should report it for them to cover it. 

What Water Damage Doesn’t Your Homeowners Insurance Cover?

If a pipe has been leaking for weeks or even months causing water damage, your homeowner's insurance policy will probably not cover it. Even if the water damage isn’t visible until it seeps through a ceiling over weeks, it may not cover it. If a toilet or sink slowly leaks and rots away the floor underneath it until you notice a soft spot in the floor months later, your home insurance will most likely deny your claim. Still, you should contact your insurance agent and ask to see if they will cover the damage. Every insurance company is different and has slight tweaks to what they do and don’t cover. 

If the water damage is the result of a creek or river flooding your home or basement will not be covered by a standard homeowner's insurance policy. If you live by a river or stream that is prone to flooding or you live in a floodplain, you need to purchase separate flood insurance to cover any water damage from a flood. 

The other type of water damage that many don’t know that their policy won’t cover is backups from the outside sewer or storm drains. This backup usually occurs in basements and can create a really stinky mess. Ask your insurance company if your policy covers sewer backups? Some require additional coverage to cover this type of water damage. 

One last thing, if your water damage is caused by an appliance that breaks like a dishwasher or clothes washer, while the water damage it caused will usually be covered, they may not cover the replacement of the broken appliance. This is because they may consider the damage to the appliance as normal wear and tear. 

Call the Indianapolis Water Damage Cleanup Experts

We hope we made it a little clearer about what is covered and what is not from water damage. As we said, please contact your insurance agent to understand exactly what your homeowner's policy covers and what it does not. If you should suffer water damage, whether, from a broken pipe or flooding, we at SERVPRO of Indianapolis West can help with the cleanup and restoration. We have the tools and experience to handle any size disaster and we’re available 24/7 to answer any emergency. Give SERVPRO of Indianapolis West a call when disaster strikes your home.