$10k Water damage limits - am i covered or not?

​After a long day at work, you come home to find water all over your beautiful floors and the water has traveled into many rooms of your home. The panic sets in and you grab every towel you own in an attempt to soak up the water but to no avail and have to call a professional company to remove the water and dry your property.  You realize you have extensive damage to your floors, walls, baseboards, kitchen cabinets and furniture. 
 
Of course, you trust that your insurance policy will cover the cost of the damages and the dry out bill.  Why wouldn’t they? After all you pay your insurance premiums every year!  Then the insurance adjuster arrives at your home to inspect the damages and you quickly find out that you have a $10,000.00 water damage limit in your policy. 
 
In recent years, insurance companies have been placing these water damage limits in their policies to limit their payout on a water damage claim caused by a plumbing leak, air conditioning leak or broken pipe. Unfortunately, this limit also includes the cost to dry out your property.
 
In a situation like this, it is truly a catch 22 because you are required to protect your property from further damage as per your insurance policy, yet it could add up to be costly and eat away at the $10k limit, leaving you with limited funds toward repairing your property.  This same scenario above happened to a prior client of ours. The cost to replace the pipe itself is never covered, but the cost for a plumber to access the pipe is covered, and also falls under this limit.
 
If your home was built in the 50’s or 60’s and has cast iron pipes, your insurance company may require that you replace all the pipes with PVC before they will continue to insure your property.  They may place a $10k water damage limit in your policy or they may exclude water damage coverage all together.
 
It is important to understand and know what is in your insurance policy. That is why one of our comprehensive policy reviews is so valuable. When you know and understand what is actually in the policy you pay for, it gives you the opportunity to shop for a better policy before disaster strikes and you are left to pay for expensive damages that are not covered.