I do insurance claims and best advice I can give you is make sure you have an endorsement on your homeowners insurance that will be called “escape of water” or “sump pump” endorsement and make sure the amount is high enough so that it would cover rebuild if it flooded. You will never have coverage if ground water or surface water comes in directly but if you have proper drainage and a sump pump and it still gets overwhelmed (or sump pump dies) and the water backs up into the basement from the drain or pump…it can cover you. They often come as $5,000 or $10,000 but if it’s a finished basement and damage could cost more than that, make sure it’s higher. I’ve done plenty of catastrophe claims where we just cut everyone who had that limit $10,000 checks immediately and that’s all they’ll ever get. It sucks.
Hopefully you already know about this and have it…I personally feel like if you have a basement and you don’t have this endorsement your agent may be an idiot. Or you chose the coverages yourself and didn’t know what it was.
Oh shit thanks! Yeah house didn’t have one and the reason for the flood was ground water into window (didn’t break) just went through old casing and cracks.
I’ll check this tomorrow and get a pump installed near the north facing for exit drainage.
Yeah the ground water will never be covered but if you get good drainage, seal up the walls and floor so no intrusion, install a sump and make sure you have that endorsement that’s about as good as you can get.