Plumbing Leak Insurance Claims: Save the damaged part!
If you have damage from a plumbing leak, keep the failed plumbing part from the repair
Plumbing leaks happen, and they cause damage. If you find yourself in that situation, your first instinct is never your impending insurance claim, it’s that there’s water everywhere, causing damage and you need it to stop.
Your insurance policy is a contract; a legal document. It requires you to perform certain actions, and when there’s a plumbing leak and water damage, it may seem like those actions are at odds with one another. You have to protect the property from further damage, mitigate the existing damages, preserve the evidence for the insurance company to inspect, and make sure not to prejudice the insurance company’s investigation.
Here’s how to balance all of those duties under your insurance policy:
Protect the property from further damage
If you’ve found water on your floor, you have to quickly diagnose the problem. There may be massive amounts of clean water coming from a supply line or a pressurized plumbing line causing damage. If that’s the case, turn off the main shutoff valve, typically found outside your home. Once the water supply is shut off, the ongoing damage will have stopped and you have time to call a plumber.
If you don’t know where the main water shutoff is, you might have no choice but to call a plumber while the water continues to leak and cause damage. Your insurance company may try to use this against you, depending on how extensive the water damages are. A diligent homeowner should find out where their water shut off is in advance of a problem like this.
If the water damage isn’t being caused by a supply line or other pressurized plumbing, it’s either being caused by a broken cast iron drain line, or other waste/sanitary plumbing, or an appliance, like a washing machine or dishwasher.
If the water on the floor causing damage is dirty or smells badly, it is likely coming from a broken cast iron drain line or appliance that carries dirty water. In that case, stop all appliances using water and refrain from using your showers and toilets until a handyman or plumber has been able to figure out what the problem is.
Once you’ve stopped the flow of water, take pictures. Take lots of pictures and document the conditions before any repair or other effort has started. Your insurance company requires that you document damages and now might be the best opportunity to preserve the conditions as they exist at the time of the leak.
Mitigate the existing damages
You’ve successfully stopped the supply of water that’s causing damage in your home, and at this point you may be waiting for a plumber, but you still have water that is soaking into the porous building materials in your home. Water is being absorbed by drywall, particle board, plywood, cabinets, vanities, laminate flooring or wood flooring, or even being absorbed into grout and mortar beneath your tile flooring. It could be clean water that causes staining and other damages, or it could be dirty water or sewage that requires special types of repair due to health and safety issues.
There is already some damage, but you can prevent it from getting worse. You can start yourself by using towels to soak up the water, and a shop vac if you have one, or a mop and bucket. Work on getting as much of the standing water up as possible. If you have more than one pair of hands, have someone take pictures of this process as well. If your towels are damaged cleaning up dirty water, you can claim these as part of your insurance claim.
Once you have a good handle on cleaning up the standing water, point some fans towards wet areas if you have them to help dry the damaged materials.
The reason you want to clean up water as best you can is because in as little as 48 hours, under the right conditions, mold can begin to form and spread, posing a health risk to you and your family. Most insurance policies also cap mold damages at a relatively low amount, and preventing the spread and growth of mold can save you potentially huge out of pocket expenses.
Water mitigation contractors
Depending on how much damage has been caused by the plumbing leak, and the type of water, you may also want to get in a special type of contractor that specializes in water mitigation.
This water mitigation contractor will have been trained in water clean up, both clean water and dirty water. We caution you again to take pictures before they start because this is when things can start to move quickly and get you in trouble with your insurance company.
Water mitigation contractors may cut holes in building materials like cabinets and drywall to assist fans in drying areas of damage, or have larger machines that extract water from inside wall cavities or other areas. These contractors may also remove significant areas of drywall, remove damaged cabinets, or other damaged materials. If at all possible, take photographs and ask that these materials not be discarded.
Your insurance policy requires that you show damaged items to the insurance company, and if, in their haste, a water mitigation contractor throws all this stuff away and there are no photographs, the insurance company may never know what was damaged, giving them grounds to deny your claim.
If you have a garage, keep the damaged materials there. If not, a storage shed, or outside protected from the elements as best as you can.
Preserve the evidence for the insurance company to inspect
In addition to requesting the water mitigation contractor to keep the damaged building materials (drywall, cabinets, etc.), the most important thing you can do is to save the failed plumbing part. As much as it is possible, save the damaged plumbing part.
If a supply line burst, get the broken copper pipe, or other plumbing material and keep it somewhere safe. The insurance company will want to verify what happened, and how. They may analyze it later in more detail or have an engineer verify that it is consistent with an accident and wasn’t purposely cut, or that there wasn’t some other type of insurance fraud.
If an appliance fails, keep the appliance somewhere it can be accessed. VIP Adjusting’s founder had an insurance claim related to a broken valve on a dishwasher. Six months later, the insurance company came and took the entire dishwasher to be kept as evidence while they pursued what’s called “subrogation” for indemnification against the dishwasher’s manufacturer.
The hardest failed plumbing part to save is a broken cast iron drain line. When cast iron plumbing fails, it becomes very brittle, and in order to get to it, you often have to dig a trench in the slab that can damage the cast iron line even further.
In this situation of damage caused by a cast iron drain line, it’s best to leave the line in place and let the insurance company do as much investigation as they want before you undertake any repair, as the alternative is very risky.
If you must proceed in addressing a cast iron drain line, first have a licensed plumber with a camera run it through the line and document by video all breaks in the line and mark them in the house with tape. Make sure you have a copy of this video before you do anything else.
In proceeding from there, when the floor is trenched, take photo or video of the area to prove it is the same area as the break from your video and get as much documentation of the broken cast iron plumbing as possible. If the cast iron line can be removed in a large piece, save it!
Don’t prejudice the insurance company’s investigation
This post is a very methodical description of what is an otherwise chaotic situation. You’ve had water damage your home. Your life has been turned upside down. You’ve spent money on plumbers and other contractors. You may have been unable to use some or all of your home’s plumbing system in the meantime. You might have had to move out of the home because the plumbing will be unusable for an extended period, or because the damage is too great. The last thing on your mind is your insurance claim, but it’s our first concern.
If you have done anything that allows the insurance company to question whether the loss happened exactly as you say, the insurance company can deny your claim outright, and they may be justified in doing so.
If you had water damage from a burst copper pipe and the plumber cut a hole in the wall, cut out a section of pipe that’s damaged and installs a new piece, but the broken pipe is discarded, how can the insurance company be sure someone didn’t spray the walls with a hose to try to get some money? This is why you need to preserve your evidence by saving the damaged plumbing parts.
Maybe you had a water mitigation contractor come in to perform drying services, and they did such a good job removing wet materials, there’s no evidence of damage remaining. How will the insurance company know there was any damage at all and a shady contractor didn’t just come in and cut out drywall to fake an insurance claim?
The scariest scenario is that you’ve had a failed cast iron drain line and can no longer prove it. Often times, between the trenching, flooring repairs, and significant areas of renovation required, these repairs of failed cast iron drain lines can exceed six-figures. If you can’t prove what happened in great detail, the insurance company may try to claim that even though you may have needed to replace this line, there is no coverage because there was no leak! We’ve seen it happen, and instead of getting fairly paid for your claim, a homeowner like this would be facing an uphill battle right from the start at a risk of not receiving a fair reimbursement for their claim.
A cautionary tale of a plumbing leak
One of the most absurd claims we’ve ever handled was for a homeowner that was very handy. In fact, the homeowner was an air conditioning repair man. He had owned a home for barely two weeks and upon arriving home from work discovered water pouring out of a light fixture in his kitchen, with the water originating from the second floor of his home.
Being as handy as he was, the homeowner turned off the water and waited for help from a friend while he cleaned up some of the water on his own. The water was clean, so he knew it was a broken supply line somewhere in his home.
Once he had his friend to help him, the friend turned on the water supply and the homeowner quickly realized the water was coming from a broken plastic tube from the wall to a toilet. He turned off the water to that toilet and localized the problem.
Now, here’s where our homeowner got himself into trouble. These plastic lines are brittle and break all the time, so he didn’t think it was a big deal. He went to a big-box hardware store, bought a nicer braided metal replacement in cash for about $5, replaced it, and threw the broken plastic one away.
The insurance company came to the home, couldn’t inspect the broken plastic plumbing to the toilet and sent an engineer to the property to assist them in denying the claim. The engineer, a paid shill from the insurance company said that even though the homeowner had owned the home less than a month, the big stain on the ceiling of his kitchen and damage to his kitchen cabinets was the result of years of water from people getting in and out of the shower in that upstairs bathroom, and dripping on the floor!
Because our client thought nothing of his insurance claim when he fixed the problem, he ended up having to proceed with several years worth of litigation in order to get paid for his claim.
VIP Adjusting’s public adjusters have seen all kinds of plumbing leak damage over the years and make sure to approach the situation from the perspective of your insurance claim, your potential recovery, and preservation in the event of litigation. If you’ve had water damage as a result of a plumbing leak, contact VIP Adjusting today so they can guide you through the claims process and assist you in documenting your damages and the conditions at your home.
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Plumbing Leaks: What’s covered by your insurance policy?
What does your homeowners insurance cover if you have a plumbing leak?
There are several different types of insurance policies for homeowners (both residential and rental properties) as well as for commercial properties. Today we’re going to discuss what is typically covered by the most common homeowners insurance policy in Florida, an HO-3 policy, also referred to as an “all risk” policy.
What is an HO-3 or “All Risk” Policy?
An HO-3 policy is often referred to as an “all risk” policy because it starts describing the coverage as all damage, either “direct physical loss to property,” or “sudden and accidental loss” and then works backwards from there to limit that coverage with exclusions. As always, you should review the terms of your insurance policy with a public adjuster at VIP Adjusting if you’re making a claim in Fort Pierce, or anywhere throughout the Treasure Coast.
Some homeowners insurance policies only cover a small list of “named perils” and have limited coverage while some HO-3 homeowners policies don’t cover plumbing leaks at all. With aging homes throughout Florida including aging plumbing, and shoddy materials and workmanship becoming the norm for new construction and renovation, hopefully you’ve checked with your insurance agent before the time comes to make a claim.
Ensuing Loss and Water Damage are Covered
There are two types of plumbing systems in most Florida homes. Supply plumbing includes pressurized pipes that carry water into your home and to your fixtures and appliances. Sanitary plumbing, or “waste lines” carry used water from your toilets, showers, bath tubs, sinks, washing machines and dishwashers to your septic tank or to the sewer.
If water accidentally escapes from either of these plumbing systems, either because the pipes burst, or a cast iron drain pipe has rusted, all damage that’s caused by the water is covered (unless your policy has a water damage exclusion, but I’ll continue to operate on the assumption that we’re discussing a standard HO-3 policy from here forward).
There must be water damage in order for the loss to be covered. If you have clean water spill onto a tile floor from a broken sink faucet and it causes no damage, there is likely no coverage and no viable insurance claim.
If the water has caused damage, however, your claim is viable. Water leaks may very easily damage laminate floors or lower quality cabinets and vanities. More substantial supply line leaks can cause tiles to de-bond or crack after swelling and contracting the mortar underneath. Water can also easily damage drywall and baseboards.
If your leak is from a broken waste line or collapsed cast iron drain, the damage is even more serious. Water in sanitary pipes often contains contaminants from your sink or dishwasher (usually referred to as Category 2 water or “grey water”) or actual sewage from toilets (usually referred to as Category 3 water). If these types of water come in contact with any porous building material, it requires special types of repairs, most of which are outlined in publications produced by the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification, or IICRC, which is the industry standard.
Leak detection
If you’ve discovered water on the floor in your home and it’s causing damage, the investigation to determine the source of the water is often covered. Homeowners insurance policies require you to protect the property from further damage and this activity may be one of the most important undertakings in stemming the losses inside your home. It also requires that you document damages. A leak detection satisfies your requirements and post-loss obligations under your insurance policy.
Sometimes this is a simple undertaking, while other times it’s a more significant investigation. VIP Adjusting can assist you with this portion of your claim and make sure all steps are documented to show your insurance company when the time comes.
Access to Repair the Plumbing is Covered
In addition to the water damage coverage trigger, your homeowners insurance policy typically covers access to the broken plumbing to allow for repair. Plumbing access isn’t often the first thought of a homeowner, but it can easily be the most expensive portion of a claim.
If a supply pipe bursts inside the wall of your bathroom, the water cleanup and repair of water damage may be minimal, but in order to get to the leaking pipe to repair it, you may have to demolish an expensive shower, including removing and likely damaging the tile.
If a supply pipe is leaking inside the slab of a home carrying water to the kitchen, you may have to remove tile or wood flooring to dig through the slab. This is not always the case, though.
If a cast iron waste line has collapsed inside the slab, there is definitely access required through the floor and the slab. A significant trench may need to be dug throughout the home to lay a significant portion of new pipe, because waste lines often rely on gravity to carry dirty water out of your home. These repairs can run across multiple rooms and may require significant repairs and renovation.
You also may have continuous flooring running throughout your whole home, or significant portions of it. These are important factors that need to be taken into consideration as part of your claim, and why it’s best to rely on your public adjuster, instead of the insurance company’s adjuster.
Broken Pipes are Usually Not Covered, but might be in some cases
Your insurance policy does not typically cover “loss to the system or appliance” that is the origin of the water leak and damage. That means if your pipes burst, the insurance covers the water damage and the access, but you pay to replace the pipe. Alternatively, if a valve on your dishwasher or washing breaks and leaks, the water damage is covered, but you have to fix or replace the dishwasher or washing machine that is leaking. This is the most common situation, but it is not always the case.
If you had a supply line inside the slab that is leaking, instead of making a costly repair damaging the flooring and slab, you may be able to make a type of temporary repair known as a re-route. This type of repair has new supply lines run to the location through walls and ceilings (access through drywall and paint is often significantly less expensive than flooring and slab work).
A plumbing re-route is often determined to be temporary because it doesn’t make you whole and return your property to pre-loss condition. It may or may not be a permanent solution. Sometimes, a re-route reduces your cold water supply by exposing it to heat in exterior walls or attic spaces. Other times, it’s just not feasible, like if the supply line runs to a kitchen island.
There are a lot of different scenarios that come in to play when evaluating damage as a result of a pluming leak. These scenarios have large implications when it comes to the amount of money you’ll ultimately receive to repair your home. It’s important to get in touch with a public adjuster as early on in the process as possible so that you’re protected.
If you’ve had a plumbing leak in your home, contact VIP Adjusting today for a free claim evaluation.
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