READ THIS if you have a sump pump or french drain

[puppiesandrainbows]

Doing the insurance thread, I remembered this particular detail that I see constantly and is a huge problem, so I thought I'd warn you in a separate thread.

Sump pumps are more common up north, especially Maryland, Virginia, D.C, etc. For those that don't know, a sump pump is a small mechanical system that sits in a pit inside the ground of your basement, and pumps water out to keep the basement dry. I mention french drains because they are a type of drainage system that can also be inside a house, but they are more rare.

If you have a sump pump in your home, get your policy and make sure you have an endorsement providing coverage. It should be listed on your Declarations page, and it will be called something along the lines of "Water back up and Sump Pump Endorsement", or "Limited Sump pump endorsement". Or, just call your insurance agent and ask.

If you do not have an endorsement, and your sump pump fails for any reason at all, there is no coverage. This is almost always across the board excluded by all homeowner's policies. In extremely rare cases it could be a regular part of your policy, but I have never seen this. It is almost always an excluded loss and requires an endorsement for coverage.

If you do have the endorsement, check it for limits. Many times the losses related to a sump pump are capped at $7500, $10,000 or $15,000. That limit must encompass all the damages, including the repairs, mitigation, contents, whatever. If the damages exceed that amount, you only get the policy limit and have to eat the cost for anything else.

Maryland does not allow a limit though (it is subject to the regular limit provided by the policy), so if you have the endorsement there you should be fine.

If you do have a limit, make sure it's enough. If you have an unfinished basement with very little contents in it, or stuff that is not high value, $7500 should be fine. But if you have a 2000 sq ft completely finished basement filled with furnishings, you are going to be SOL if you have a loss with a $7500 limit.

If you have a sump pump and don't have the endorsement, get it added RIGHT NOW. It will not cost much in premium, but it will save your ass because sump pumps, especially if they were installed by the builder, are cheap and flimsily made and break all.the.time.

However, when you add it, be careful what you say. I know this sounds weird, but if you add the endorsement, and then have the misfortune to have a sump pump loss shortly thereafter, it can look like a red flag for fraud.

I would say "One of my neighbors had her sump pump die and her basement was ruined, and her insurance company didn't pay for anything, something about not having an endorsement? So I checked my policy and it looks like I don't have one either, so I though I would call and see if I need one?" Play dumb.

I had a truly fraudulent water claim recently, and shortly after policy inception the guy called underwriting and asked "So, if one of my pipe breaks, all of my house and belongings are covered, right?". It was one of the pieces of evidence I used against him. It was a VERY small piece of the overall evidence, but still. I'd hate for it to happen to one of you.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[definitelyO]

thank you. we did have a sump pump put in last summer - so I would just let them know that we had one recently installed and needed to make sure it was covered. thanks!

[puppiesandrainbows]

Aug 16, 2012 17:10:23 GMT -5 definitelyO said:

thank you. we did have a sump pump put in last summer - so I would just let them know that we had one recently installed and needed to make sure it was covered. thanks!

Since you added it later you might not have the coverage. Let me know what you find out!

[definitelyO]

interesting. I'll call our agent and ask. we had it added b/c we had water damage TWICE - to our 1500 sqft finished basement... UGH. not covered as it was groundwater that came in and was considered "flood"

[orangeblossom]

I wonder if this is what my sister had. She had two sump pump failings. The first one they were able to just air out and have the mold people come. The second one was when it rained so hard people's houses were sinking in and they completely redid the basement. Both times insurance covered it. Otherwise the would have been out of luck.

[Becca]

Thank you!

We have always had a damp basement with some seepage when it rains. We are working on finishing the basement now (hooray for a 2nd bathroom!). So we just had a sump pump installed to keep everything dry. We sprung for the battery and second pump back-ups, but I will make sure we are covered by insurance too. (plus letting them know about the refinish work obviously)

[puppiesandrainbows]

Aug 16, 2012 17:15:09 GMT -5 definitelyO said:

interesting. I'll call our agent and ask. we had it added b/c we had water damage TWICE - to our 1500 sqft finished basement... UGH. not covered as it was groundwater that came in and was considered "flood"

Exactly, those types of situations are ground water or surface water and are excluded. But if you have a sump pump and the water table rises due to heavy rains and you get water in the basement, if you have the endorsement it's considered a failure or overwhelming of the sump pump and it's covered.

[puppiesandrainbows]

Aug 16, 2012 17:18:49 GMT -5 Becca said:

Thank you!

We have always had a damp basement with some seepage when it rains. We are working on finishing the basement now (hooray for a 2nd bathroom!). So we just had a sump pump installed to keep everything dry. We sprung for the battery and second pump back-ups, but I will make sure we are covered by insurance too. (plus letting them know about the refinish work obviously)

Good luck! Again, make sure your endorsement has sufficient limits to cover the cost of re-refinishing your basement and replacing any contents there if the worst case scenario happens.

[puppiesandrainbows]

And again, just because I see this all the time, don't assume that if you have a newer home, and your builder got your policy for you then that means you must have the coverage. Lots of my insureds assumed the builder would know what he/she was doing and would make sure they have the coverage they needed. Wrong.

[whitepicketfence]

Good to know!

I can't recall whether we have an endorsement for our sump pump on our policy or not. I better double check.

We just replaced our sump pump in June. Luckily, we caught the problem early on before we had any flooding.

[thatgirl2478]

THANK YOU for reminding me of this. Our old house didn't have a sump pump - this one does. Luckily we are currently remodeling our basement family room, so we have all the walls exposed. We did take in water, but it was because the drain in the stairwell was clogged. I unclogged it, we got twice as much rain as when it flooded the first time, and we didn't have any more water. wooo.


The plumber is coming to inspect all basement drains, sump pump, and outdoor drain on Monday... Hopefully we can find and resolve any issues before we finish our basement.

[LoveTrains]

Is this the "water back up" coverage? I am pricing out a new policy and the agent asked me if I wanted it. I said yes. He said that would cover us if city water/sewer also backed into the house in a storm. I think I am explaining this properly....

[puppiesandrainbows]

Aug 16, 2012 19:07:10 GMT -5 LoveTrains said:

Is this the "water back up" coverage? I am pricing out a new policy and the agent asked me if I wanted it. I said yes. He said that would cover us if city water/sewer also backed into the house in a storm. I think I am explaining this properly....

Yes, many times they're lumped together, and are called some variation of "Water backup and sump endorsement". If you can get them together, it's worth it.

I will say this though. Many insurance adjusters do not have the knowledge to correctly diagnose a "true" sewer backup. Just because water comes out of a drain, doesn't mean it's a backup. This is important because a lot of people don't have the endorsement, so the backup ends up being improperly denied.

So for the purposes of this discussion, let's refer to a drain that is in the center floor of your basement. Some older homes have them. That line drains from the basement, runs through the plumbing on your property, and empties into the city drain system on your street.

Let's say that for a whole week, you have had incredibly heavy rains in your area. Some parts of the city even have standing water. One day you come home, and have an inch of standing water in your basement, and you're freaking out. The claims adjustor comes out and says, "gosh, looks like your sewer line backed up and flooded the basement. Sorry lady, this is flood due to a backup and it's not covered." But it might not be a real backup.

For something to be a "true" backup, the backup has to emanate OFF the insured's property, and you have to prove it.

So, you need to call a plumber immediately to come out. If your adjustor can be there at the same time, even better, but don't wait. Have the plumber snake the line, as long as he can go. I can guarantee you, somewhere along the line he'll find some kind of clog, debris, or tree roots. Document the hell out of it and have the plumber clear it. Take lots of photos.

With the presence of debris in the line, the claim is not a sewer back up. That claim is then correctly diagnosed as a sudden and accidental overflow from the plumbing system, and it is a covered loss.

However, let's pretend that he snakes the line and finds absolutely nothing. And your area has had huge rains. In the absence of any clogs, plus the high rain, it indeed appears that your city sewer system became overwhelmed, and backed up into your home. This is not covered without an endorsement. Also, a true backup will usually find the water drain of its own accord pretty quickly, unlike a clog that will just sit there until it gets unclogged.

The main difference is the difference between "backup" and "overflow". Most overflows are covered, generally speaking. It's the backup that's a problem. With debris clogging the line, the water wasn't truly backing up out of the line, it was accumulating there until it had nowhere to go but out. A true back up would have the water from the city's sewer system actively flowing towards your home and out the drain, due to it's own system being too full.

[puppiesandrainbows]

One more thing to mention - no plumbing repairs are covered, as they are considered a wear and tear item. And not just in the example I gave above, plumbing repairs are almost never covered. They would have to be damaged by a covered peril, like a tree fell through your house and broke the plumbing. But otherwise, no. But the ensuing water damage is covered, just not the cost to fix the pipe.

[LoveTrains]

Thanks puppies! The house has a finished basement so I will definitely be sure I have this with decent limits.

[thatgirl2478]

Aug 16, 2012 19:33:23 GMT -5 puppiesandrainbows said:

One more thing to mention - no plumbing repairs are covered, as they are considered a wear and tear item. And not just in the example I gave above, plumbing repairs are almost never covered. They would have to be damaged by a covered peril, like a tree fell through your house and broke the plumbing. But otherwise, no. But the ensuing water damage is covered, just not the cost to fix the pipe.

Yep. Even when my parents pipes burst because they froze (heat was on, it just got REALLY cold - thankfully we were out of the house since my grandmother had passed away) insurance didn't pay for the pipe repair, but they DID pay for plaster repairs, an antique wooden table to be refinished, refinishing the wood floors, re wallpapering the affected rooms, etc.

Thankfully my parents had replacement cost coverage. I think they even had a higher policy than just 'replacement' because the regular plan would just replace with something that was commercially available currently (like you can go to home depot and buy) where as their plan covered historically accurate (the pattern was identical, they just changed the color) wall paper. And since they have an open stair case, the wall paper had to be replaced throughout the WHOLE hallway on 2 floors (approximately 50' of hallway - 2 sides, 2 floors - it was a big deal).

This is why it's important to know what your plan will pay for!

[puppiesandrainbows]

Aug 16, 2012 20:02:58 GMT -5 thatgirl2478 said:

Aug 16, 2012 19:33:23 GMT -5 puppiesandrainbows said:

One more thing to mention - no plumbing repairs are covered, as they are considered a wear and tear item. And not just in the example I gave above, plumbing repairs are almost never covered. They would have to be damaged by a covered peril, like a tree fell through your house and broke the plumbing. But otherwise, no. But the ensuing water damage is covered, just not the cost to fix the pipe.

Yep. Even when my parents pipes burst because they froze (heat was on, it just got REALLY cold - thankfully we were out of the house since my grandmother had passed away) insurance didn't pay for the pipe repair, but they DID pay for plaster repairs, an antique wooden table to be refinished, refinishing the wood floors, re wallpapering the affected rooms, etc.

Thankfully my parents had replacement cost coverage. I think they even had a higher policy than just 'replacement' because the regular plan would just replace with something that was commercially available currently (like you can go to home depot and buy) where as their plan covered historically accurate (the pattern was identical, they just changed the color) wall paper. And since they have an open stair case, the wall paper had to be replaced throughout the WHOLE hallway on 2 floors (approximately 50' of hallway - 2 sides, 2 floors - it was a big deal).

This is why it's important to know what your plan will pay for!

Sounds like your parents had the HO8 form (most people have the standard HO3 form) of the homeowners policy. I'm sure it cost them a pretty penny!

[puppiesandrainbows]

Dupe

[mrs.spunky]

We were the only house in the neighborhood with a sump pump rider when Hurricane Irene came through last year. We got a check for $10k a week later to repair our finished basement, everyone else had to rip everything out and re-do it slowly out of savings or cash flow, if at all.

[puppiesandrainbows]

So who added endorsements?

[tripleshot]

I just set up ins for our new construction home and added the sump pump endorsement!

[mbcdefg]

I inquired with our agent after reading this, and we were already covered. Thanks for the advice!

[jenikate]

I called our insurance company and we do have the coverage, but it is only for $5K. I asked the agent to send me quotes increasing coverage to 10K and $15K.

edit: we have a 1400 sqft basement and half is finished. Although, we don't have any furniture or anything in the 2 rooms. I'm sure we do need more coverage though. I need to follow up with the insurance company to see where my quotes are.

[mollyjean]

Great info! I just emailed my agent to understand the limitations further. Thank you.

[puppiesandrainbows]

Yay! Glad you're looking into it.

[slug*bug]

We just purchased our home: thanks for the info!

[midwest07]

What is you have a sump pump and the proper endorsement on your policy, but the reason it fails is because the electricity went out and you don't have a battery backup on the pump? Is that considered a failure that would be covered under the policy or your own fault for not having the proper equipment?

[jennysmitten]

I tell everyone with a basement to carry this. Unfortunately we only offer Limited coverage in Kansas, but hey, it's better than nothing!