WATER DAMAGE
Preventing Water Damage
To Your Residence
W
hen purchasing
homeowners insurance,
most individuals secure
coverage to protect
their most valuable
asset—their home—for traditional hazards
such as fire or theft. One of the most costly
exposures that is often overlooked is water
damage. Water damage comes in many
forms, as these examples demonstrate:
•
A frozen pipe bursts in a family’s
vacation home in a rural area, flooding
the entire residence for two days
until the local caretaker discovers the
flooded house and contents.
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• An upstairs hot water heater bursts,
flooding the upstairs and ground floor
living room while the owners are on
vacation. When the family returns,
they discover their home is destroyed.
• A faulty roof leaks into the home
during a heavy rain storm, causing
mold damage to the sheetrock walls.
• A clogged air conditioning line
overflows from the attic and floods the
main area of the home, damaging walls,
floors, and personal possessions.
The financial impact from water damage
claims can be significant based on the
nature of the claim and cleanup costs. The
inconvenience of water damage repairs and
being out of your home for an extended
period of time can be overwhelming as well.
The good news is that most water damage
incidents and their resulting insurance
claims can be prevented with some loss
prevention planning and some common-
sense strategies.
The most common issue with major
water damage events is that the home
is unoccupied. Most initial water leaks
can be cleaned up quickly and mitigated
without further damage when someone is
home. But minor leaks can quickly evolve