What water damage expenses has your insurance covered?

May 19, 2024 9:27 AM

My dishwasher leaked into three rooms and the crawlspace, and the damage is covered by my insurance company. I do NOT want to lie to the company. I DO want to make sure I use every bit of coverage I have. My policy isn't written for easy reading. What might I not have thought of?

The company told me it will cover to repair the flooring and damaged cabinets; a hotel room for a few days while new flooring is installed; boarding for my cat during the same time if she can't come to the hotel; additional expenses for food while the kitchen is unusable; a higher than average electricity bill because of the industrial fans running while the floors were dried. Some of these they told me about only after I asked, so I want to make sure there are no other expenses I haven't considered.

posted by anonymous to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

Mold remediation? Drywall replacement? Painting?
posted by XtineHutch at 9:30 AM on May 19 [2 favorites]

Extra food expenses. Going out to eat is usually more expensive than eating in. Are they going to have to unplug and empty the refrigerator when they address the floors?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:35 AM on May 19 [1 favorite]

Be super friendly and personable with your adjuster and ask them this question too, I've had adjusters cover stuff I wouldn't have thought of just because they liked me.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:57 AM on May 19 [10 favorites]

I had a fridge line leak. Have a good remediation/renovation specialist come quote it, then the insurance company will come look at it, and they'll meet in the middle somewhere.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:43 PM on May 19

Based on an incident I had make sure the water didn't affect the circuit breaker panel for the house (which just happened to be directly below the kitchen sink and dishwasher).
posted by forthright at 1:26 PM on May 19

We had a leak above our kitchen ceiling in our old house, and while pulling the dishwasher out to get to the stopcock and turn the water off we damaged it, which we didn't realise for a while. We also got water in the toaster and had to ditch that. I would both check all the appliances/lamps/etc that were potentially exposed to water and ask the insurers about coverage of those, too.
posted by In Your Shell Like at 1:49 AM on May 20

My experience with this has been that the insurance company didn't volunteer anything after mold remediation and repairs but gave me everything else I asked for once I asked. For example, they gave me money for the extra cost of running industrial drying equipment for 72 straight hours off my electricity but didn't offer this to me up front. It was only after hour 72 when I thought damn this is going to drive up my electric bill this month. I have an antique piano that had to be moved to redo the floors and they paid to have a professional piano mover come and take it and store it for a few days because I refused to allow them to just move it into a pod in the driveway with the rest of the furniture in a week when we were getting a lot of rain.
posted by archimago at 5:27 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]

Hauling off the cabinets, flooring, and any other building materials that need to be removed.

Testing for asbestos if your house is old enough it could be an issue, remediating the asbestos, all the associated hotel and boarding expenses.
posted by yohko at 7:07 PM on May 21