Policy note
Water damage in a terraced 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.
A terraced house shares two walls, so damage that starts next door can finish here. The conditions treat a party wall as part of the building it stands in.
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.
02
What the policy covers here
- 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
- Slow seepage that has been going on long enough to stain or to rot.
- 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.
- Damage in a building left unheated through a frost with the water still in the system.
- 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.