Indiana Restoration & Cleaning Services

What coverage you need to make sure you have for your home

Essential Types of Coverage for Your Home

If your home has ever faced serious water damage, then you no doubt know that homeowner’s insurance is often not what it’s cracked up to be. While it’s a valuable service that can be a lifesaver in the event of a tremendous emergency such as a fire, most home owner’s insurance policies don’t handle damage from certain sources of water. It’s very important, then, to know what types of water damage you’re covered for, and what you can do if a problem arises.

The Wide World of Water Damage

The first thing to understand about water damage to your home is that insurers tend to divide water damage up into two major categories: gradual and sudden or accidental discharge. This distinction is important to know because, by and large, gradual water damage isn’t covered by most policies.

Gradual water damage refers to damage that is accrued slowly over time, rather than in one sudden event. But one bit of information that can be a little counterintuitive for many people is that floods are considered gradual damage.

The other major type of water damage that can occur to a home is sudden or accidental discharge. This refers to events such as a drain backing up and overflowing, your sewer backing up into your home, or other failures of plumbing. Storm-related damages can also be considered sudden or accidental, such as hail damage or if your roof is destroyed by a storm.

What is Covered by Most Policies?

In most cases, sudden discharges of water and the resulting damage will be covered by your existing home owner’s insurance policies. With flood damage, however, it can be a different story.

Because flooding can happen so quickly and violently, it’s a little difficult to imagine it as gradual rather than sudden, but rest assured, this is how insurers treat flood damage. A rule of thumb that many people use when discussing this topic is that, if the water touches the ground outside before it gets into your home, then it’s considered gradual damage. For this reason, you’ll want to be absolutely sure that you know what to do in the event of flood damage to your home, considering that your costs of repair are unlikely to be covered by your existing insurance policies.

What to Do When You’re Not Covered

If you have flood damage to your home and find that you’re not covered, one of the very first things you’ll want to do is try to estimate the cost of repairs and then do what you can to file an insurance claim. The best way to do this is to hire an inspection service right away, before you change anything in the house. The inspector can help you make a determination about what percentage, if any, of the repair costs might be covered. Then, you can make an appointment to talk to an agent and file a claim.

One thing you’ll want to do regardless is get in touch with a highly qualified and experienced water damage specialist such as Indiana Restorations. Whether the costs of repairs are covered by insurance or not, you’ll need a professional touch to make your home habitable again, and Indiana Restorations has a reputation for providing excellent service at an affordable price.