Home Owners Insurance Coverage for Under Slab Sewer or Water Leaks - YouTube

My name is Sean Buckley with In-House Plumbing Company, let's talk just briefly about homeowners insurance

Coverage or the possibility of that for under slab sewer and water leaks. First thing

I want to say here is most homeowners insurance companies state of, Texas

Do not cover

this type of problem

anymore in the old days say before 2001

The most homeowners insurance companies did cover this type of problem or at least the majority of the cost

For this type of problem was covered by the homeowners insurance company since 2001 which at that point they took

water out of the policies the homeowners insurance policies in the state of Texas for a lot of different reasons and

since then

instead of having one standard policy in the state of Texas nowadays there are multiple different types of policies and

multiple different

interpretations of the policy depending on the insurance company, and how they actually interpret it the policy and so

Nowadays the truth of the matter is a lot of a lot of companies

Don't cover it and the ones that do cover it may cover it only in certain circumstances and situations

and so most of the time the only way to really know if something is covered or not is to call the insurance company and

Find out if it's actually covered; however we recommend not just calling them and telling you them

Telling the insurance company that you have a problem

Generally we recommend that you call your agent if you can

Talk to them from a sales standpoint instead of a clean standpoint in other words, you know

You want to know if your policy covers this?

If you were to have a problem

and so on such as one potential example is my neighbor has a problem like you have and

Their insurance company has said they're not going to cover this

I want to know if my policy covers this because it could be a lot of money

if I was to have the problem that they're having

And their insurance company has said they're not going to cover it and so I can't afford to have that situation

So what you do in that case is you put it back into a sales situation

They have to sell you the policy all over again

Make sure that it actually is covered and some people say well

What if I was to tell them all of this and then I told them there was a problem who cares they work for you?

You don't need to worry about

Them being you know

not understanding whenever you're

Telling them this stuff the bottom line is you want to know if something is covered before you actual file it as a claim

And the reason that we tell people to do this is because

Technically you the insurance agent is supposed to file something as a claim whether you tell them to or not if they've been

Notified that you have that problem and the reason they're supposed to file it as a claim is

You could go back to them in several months and say I told you there was a problem here

You did nothing about it and look at all the damage that it cost and they would say well

You didn't tell me the file as a claim and so most insurance companies don't actually most insurance agents

Don't file this as a claim unless you tell them to but you don't want the insurance agent that does follow. There's a claim

And then you end up getting a claim on your record where there's actually no coverage in the policy, okay?

And so that's the most important thing. That's what we recommend

Okay, let's talk briefly. So if you have any questions on that, please feel free to give us a call

And we'll help in any way we can

Another thing that you need to look at look at and think about when you're dealing with insurance is

The deductible most homeowners insurance policies today have a 1% deductible 1% of what the house is insured for

so if your house is worth

$200,000 potentially it's insured for 240 or 50 because I have to ensure for more than potentially it's worth

to cover rebuilding it and so you know potentially at a 25 at

$250,000 house you got a $2,500 deductible at

1% of what the house is insured for so if you had one leak under the house in a normal situation

it wouldn't come up to more than the

Which means you wouldn't get any insurance coverage from them whether there was coverage or not, okay?

Because you have to pay your deductible before any insurance money kicks in and so that's one thing to think about

because of that in a lot of cases we recommend

Potentially first of all finding out what the deductible is see if you can find out if there is coverage or not

But before you file a claim, especially if you have a higher deductible

Our recommendation is to do a leak location find out what you're dealing with

Where is the leak at? How many leaks are there are? They under flooring that's going? To cost a lot of money to replace

Are there multiple leaks? and that's going to cost them a lot of money and then you know over the deductible so the point is

Find out if you actually need

The Insurance Company's help in this

Before you actually file the claim if you've got a high deductible if you've got a low

Deductible then potentially you just go ahead and file the claim and let them deal with it because they will if there is coverage

They will do an investigation

To find out you know

if it leaks, where it leaks and those

Investigation costs are on them now because that investigation costs is on them and also the fraud issue

The insurance company has the right in the state of Texas to use whoever they want to to do the investigation

Portion of the claim so you don't have the right to choose that. Some insurance

Adjusters once the adjuster gets assigned to it will tell you to actually

Find somebody and have them do the investigation

And they don't have to be on the insurance Company's list most adjusters and especially with under slab leaks

Most companies are going to require that they use their people their person that's on their list

Okay to do that investigation which they have a right to do. Now the insurance company does not have a right to use

To tell you who to use for repairs of the leak in the state of Texas state insurance

board has said that you have a right to use anybody you want to for the repair portion of the claim, but

Having said that

The insurance company plumber usually will set the price of the repair

So let's say that plumber says that the repair is 1,500

And you have another plumber that will do it for

2,000 then at that point the insurance company's going to pay you based on the 2,000 claim

Unless you can I mean on the 1500 claim?

Sorry unless you can convince them to kick in that extra money the extra money would come from you

and so now you know if if you want

Let's just say for instance you want us to do a repair

But the insurance company has done the investigation and their plumber has said some kind of price

don't hesitate to call us and we'll see what we can do to try to help out in that situation and

there are

possibilities that the insurance company company plumber could be more you can take that money and then

We can do it for less in some situations that definitely does happen or another plumber can but don't feel

pressured

Into using the insurance companies plumber because you do not have to and if an 8 and but the gesture tells you have to

he's lying he's committing

It's against the law what he's actually doing he cannot say that

And he can be in a lot of trouble both with his insurance company

If there was to be any problems on this and with the state insurance board okay, so if you have any questions

Please don't hesitate to call but the bottom line is

Coverage most policies do not cover this some policies do some policies only covered in certain circumstances and situations

Look at what the deductible is

Another thing to think about is the insurance company no matter what coverage or not

they're not going to pay all of the cost associated with a

leak under the slab there is going to be first of all the deductible but there's also going to be a small portion of

Each leaked scenario that is not covered by them that is what they call hands-on

plumbing repairs. Hands-on plumbing repairs, labor, and

Materials to cut out the old piece of pipe and put in the new piece of pipe

They do not cover that no matter what the situation is and so you would be looking at

the

What they call access and egress cost which is getting to the leak and filling it back in

that includes putting floor coverings back and also they would pay if there is coverage for the

Investigation portion the testing to make sure there is only the repair

I mean the leak location cost to locate the leak okay

and so you got to think about that now one more thing real quick to think about if the insurance company does do an

Investigation is on its own, and you have somebody else do the repairs whether it's us or anybody else

Do not let anybody punch a hole through that slab. Us or anybody else

Punch a hole through that slab or access from outside if the leaks can be repaired by tunneling from the outside

based on what the insurance plumbers plumber said as to where the leaks actually were that is a

Very bad plan and you can get into a really bad situation there. He said, she said

The Leak location guy said the Leak is here. Oh by the way. It's not here

Who's paying for that? The leak location guy is not going to reimburse you for cost if the leak is not there?

I promise you okay?

It's not going to happen what he's going to tell you when you call them like that is you went off of what I said?

How crazy is that they don't know what I did?

ETC, okay now. We you would think you would have a different opinion

And I and I agree that you could look at that in a different way

But the bottom line is nobody should punch a hole where somebody else said the leak is

if you if you go with a different plumber

that plumber

Whoever does the repair under the slab is the one that needs to be

Telling you that the leak is wherever he says it is and you need to trust that he is honest enough to

Tell you if the leak is actually not there and then not charge you for any unnecessary work that was done

This is very important

Nobody thinks about this in this business

and the

Majority of the people don't think about this or talk about it because they don't care if the leak is actually there or not

If it's if it's not there, they're going to charge you for it anyway, okay?

And then potentially go find the real one in charge for both of them or not even find the real one

You'll be left with the leak under the slab when you had a repair done anyway

Okay, that really wasn't even leaking and this stuff happens all day every day in this industry be careful

But do not let anybody punch a hole or access that leak in any way underneath the slab

Unless YOU trust that company to tell you if the leak is not there

and

They are the ones that told you that leak is there so like for us we would verify that leak is there and we would

Need to do that

Within the cost of whatever, we're talking about okay, and so how we can do that.

You know compared to the insurance plumbers cost you know every situation is different depending on you know what they say for

A repair cost but if you have any questions, or need anything at all

please don't hesitate to call also you can check out our website at

InHousePlumbingCompany.com; InHousePlumbingCompany.com. all spelled out no dashes

and

You can go to the promotion's page promotions page, and you can click on brochure

Brochure, and I'll give you our online brochure that also give you potentially it may be a little bit more about insurance and a little

Bit more about a lot of different things so feel free to go there

InHousePlumbingCompany.com

and click on brochure

on that page

And it'll get you or on the promotions page then click on brochure

And it'll get you where you need to go if you have any questions at all

Please don't hesitate to call we'll be glad to help in any way we can 972-494-1750

and this was recorded in February of

2017 so if you're watching this several years from now

there may be some updates if we haven't updated it then please check back to make sure that this information is the same february of

2017 is when this is recorded. Thanks a lot. Have a great day, and we look forward to visiting with you if you need anything