Policy note
Water damage in a semi detached house
Water damage is the situation the household conditions treat in the most detail, because water travels and the cause is usually somewhere other than the mess.
What follows is the ordinary position at Noorderdijk. The policy schedule and the conditions document together are what a claim is assessed against, and where this note and those documents differ, those documents are the ones that count.
A semi detached house has one shared wall and one open side, and the conditions treat the two differently.
02
What the policy covers here
- Sudden escape of water from a pipe, a tank or an appliance inside the building.
- The work needed to reach the leak, such as lifting a floor or opening a wall.
- Drying the structure afterwards, and making good what was opened to get at the leak.
- Reasonable costs of stopping the water in the first hours, an emergency plumber included.
- Damage to the things in the home that the water reached, where those are insured.
03
What it does not cover here
- The failed part itself, which is a repair rather than damage.
- Water that came in through a roof or a wall that was already in poor condition.
- Groundwater rising through a floor, which is a section of its own.
A leak found early is a plumber. A leak found late is a floor, a ceiling and a wall. That is the whole reason the conditions ask for an early report.