It happens far too often. A flood ruins a home and the possessions in it, and the family doesn’t even realize that their homeowners insurance won’t cover it. Do you want this to happen to you? Of course not, no one does. Unfortunately, however, most people don’t know what their policy will or will not cover.
Living where I do, there have not been any flooding in our area to produce problems in our home, but we did have water in our basement a few months ago. Fortunately, it didn’t ruin anything, so we didn’t need to claim anything, but I know that it is always possible that water damage could cause some loss. If I don’t have a good enough insurance policy, I will be in a deep pit.
We are going to look at water damage in this article and what is covered and what isn’t. You might think that water means water, but not in an insurance policy. Unfortunately, the insurance world doesn’t seem to work that way.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of what might happen to your home with water.
Flooding is one type of water damage that is often thought of as something covered by a homeowners standard insurance policy. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Even though you may need to replace things, or even replace your entire home, if you don’t have a floater policy for flooding, you will not have any coverage at all.
So, how do you get flood insurance? The only want to get it is through the government. Depending on where you live, it might be a good investment. Of course you will never know ahead of time if you need it, but you never know ahead of time if any accident will happen, right?
Have you ever had water damage due to a faucet being left on? If you have children, chances are, you have. They can easily forget to turn water off, and if they don’t tell you about it, a bathroom can flood very quickly causing an immense amount of damage. I never thought this type of accident would be covered by a simple insurance policy, but much to my surprise, it is.
It’s pretty amazing, really, to think that they will cover for your mistakes. Just look into your insurance policy and see if this is covered. It should be, and if it isn’t, you can talk to your agent to find out why.
Water damage is not anything we want to deal with, but sometimes it is something we simply can’t help. Fortunately, depending on the policy you have, there is coverage. It is worth taking time to figure out what kind of coverage you need in case of an emergency.