Home insurance coverage for water damage by leak

DublinHead54

Registered User
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Hi,

Unfortunately I've had to make a claim on house insurance for the first time due to water damage caused by a leak.

I was speaking to insurance company who said they will only cover the damage caused by the water and not cover the cost of fixing the root issue. Is this normal? I've had a plumber out to identify the source of the leak and I assumed (wrongly) that insurance would cover the cost to fix it as well.
 
Check if you have home assist or similar on your policy, normally an optional extra but you can claim for certain trades to fix/repair things.
 
Policy will cover some element of discovering the cause. i.e. trace and access normally covered up to about €1,250. But yes, depending on the cause they wont cover the actual repair of the pipe.
 
I am curious about this.

My mother's house suffered a burst underground water pipe a few years ago - it was the incoming pipe from the mains and it was her side of the stopcock so it was her responsibility. The claim was for the repair of the burst.
The household insurers paid for the repair less the excess.
I think it was Aviva and they were quite efficient.

Would it make any difference to OP's query if they had accidental damage cover or is there a universal exclusion of repair of the fault causing the claim ? I appreciate that insurers do not want to get caught for maintenance issues but is OP's broken pipe not a damaged part of the building ?
 
As with all insurance polices, the devil is in the details - you will have to read your policy documents
 
Hi,

Unfortunately I've had to make a claim on house insurance for the first time due to water damage caused by a leak.

I was speaking to insurance company who said they will only cover the damage caused by the water and not cover the cost of fixing the root issue. Is this normal? I've had a plumber out to identify the source of the leak and I assumed (wrongly) that insurance would cover the cost to fix it as well.
Get yourself a loss adjuster to work on your behalf. They take a 10% of what you get but they notice things you may not see.
 
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