Water Damage vs. Flood Damage: Navigating Insurance Coverage and Claims (Part 1)

Let’s talk water losses.  This will require several parts.  To begin with, we need to define what the difference is in a typical water loss versus a flood.

Typically, in most insurance policies, flood water is not covered.  The definition of flood water would be water entering the risk, (home, business, condo, etc.), from the ground; many instances it is referred to as “ground water.”

Fresh water, or water which ordinates within the risk, would normally be covered by your policy. A couple of examples would be if your dishwasher valve failed and caused damage to your kitchen cabinets and flooring.

The resulting damage would be covered. If you forgot and left the bathtub filling and it overflowed, that would also, normally, be covered. If you think of these, or other scenarios, ask your agent if your policy would cover them.

With water losses, there are always cavoites. Allow me to list a few.

1.   If a storm causes your roof to leak into the risk, there normally would be coverage due to a storm related opening in the roof and would not be considered flood.  Remember the water has to be ground water to be considered flood water.

2.   If ground water from the street sewer drain system overwhelmed your sump pump and flooded your basement, that would be considered backup sewer and drain.  Under most circumstances, that would require a backup sewer and drain endorsement on your policy, and I would highly encourage you to have that discussion with your Agent at the onset of purchasing your policy.

3.   An example of a fill up might be the following: Suppose little Sue decided to flush her ragdoll down the toilet and caused your drains not to drain, but rather all the drain lines filled up and ran over.  There is a high probability your policy would cover that.

4.   One of the most controversial type water losses occur when you have a leak that has been leaking over time and no maintenance was done in order to stop the leak which was causing damage.  For the most part, your policy would not allow coverage for this because it was due to neglect, or lack of proper maintenance.

As I have stated in most of my post, it’s important to take photos and document how you tried to mitigate the damage immediately, or as soon as you find something wrong like a water leak.

Please stay tuned for what to do in case you have water damage.