Buildings Insurance Cover

Spikey1

Sorry mate.....but I don't think you are asking the right question.....that's why the answers aren't making complete sense.

Like I say...check to see if you have Escape of Water cover....while you're at it, check to see if you have Flood cover too. Both of these are 'basic' perils and could be called upon to meet a claim for damage caused by the water which escaped from the pipe.

Cheers

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Sounds like L&G have some pretty clueless staff answering these sorts of questions - or maybe it is just the one that JWhite has spoken with. Somehow JWhite has come away from his conversations thinking that there is some complex special problem - there isn't - unless this drain regularly gets blocked and causes damage - that will be an inconvenience at least!

We have recognised in this thread that the OP needs reassurance on a very simple cover query but it seems that L&G haven't really recognised the fact.


We read that the OP and L&G got embroiled in lengthy conversations about legal liability. The cover under query and easily answered, just as it has been in this thread, is Buildings and Contents material damage cover, not legal liability cover. I would guess that the staff to whom the OP was speaking saw the call as an opportunity to impress using their knowledge of who fixes the blockage that caused any flood as opposed to who fixes the surrounding damage caused.


Whether there is a special weakness in this type of shared sewer pipe is a separate question. In actual fact I think the sharing aspect is extremely common which is why the law was changed to help us all overcome the not uncommon blockages without fuss about who owns what!

It is of course only since 1st October 2011 that the water authorities were given statutory ownership of almost all shared sewer pipes under private land. This has meant that any regular preventative flushing by responsible landowners has likely ceased and those of us in the vicinity of shared drains are all reliant on some new sometimes untested maintenance regime of responsibility by the water company. In practice I think it does sadly mean that water companies may often have not been aware of regular trouble spots until blockages have backed up (often more than once) causing inconvenience and damage of exactly the type the OP is worried about. In many places I think they adopted a suck it and see type approach, but not literally

The OP should ask their solicitor to get confirmation from the seller and maybe the water company that there have been no blockages in the last two years and if a truthful negative response is obtained then that will be a treble protection viz:

1. Buildings and Contents standard Escape of Water cover (less typical excess £100-£250 under each?)
2. No reports of previous problems
3. Backstop knowledge that Water Company owns shared sewer drains so it is they that bear all cost of maintaining and fixing the shared drains. I believe the water company will also come out and unblock that part of the sewer drain that is yours only i.e. between your house and the junction drain in the garden but in that case they reserve the right to make a small charge (£100 with our local company last time I checked).

Leodogger

Spikey1 wrote: »

Sorry mate.....but I don't think you are asking the right question.....that's why the answers aren't making complete sense.

Like I say...check to see if you have Escape of Water cover....while you're at it, check to see if you have Flood cover too. Both of these are 'basic' perils and could be called upon to meet a claim for damage caused by the water which escaped from the pipe.

Cheers

Surely flood cover only applies to heavy weather conditions or the property being near a river which this isn't the same thing at all. There is an excess of £250 put down to "Escape of Water" but I took this to mean water escaping from a washing machine, leaking water pipe inside the house etc. Sewers do not form part of the buildings and contents insurance from what I can gather.

I will check the policy wording when it arrives, it hasn't yet.

Leodogger

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

Sounds like L&G have some pretty clueless staff answering these sorts of questions - or maybe it is just the one that JWhite has spoken with. Somehow JWhite has come away from his conversations thinking that there is some complex special problem - there isn't - unless this drain regularly gets blocked and causes damage - that will be an inconvenience at least!

We have recognised in this thread that the OP needs reassurance on a very simple cover query but it seems that L&G haven't really recognised the fact.


We read that the OP and L&G got embroiled in lengthy conversations about legal liability. The cover under query and easily answered, just as it has been in this thread, is Buildings and Contents material damage cover, not legal liability cover. I would guess that the staff to whom the OP was speaking saw the call as an opportunity to impress using their knowledge of who fixes the blockage that caused any flood as opposed to who fixes the surrounding damage caused.


Whether there is a special weakness in this type of shared sewer pipe is a separate question. In actual fact I think the sharing aspect is extremely common which is why the law was changed to help us all overcome the not uncommon blockages without fuss about who owns what!

It is of course only since 1st October 2011 that the water authorities were given statutory ownership of almost all shared sewer pipes under private land. This has meant that any regular preventative flushing by responsible landowners has likely ceased and those of us in the vicinity of shared drains are all reliant on some new sometimes untested maintenance regime of responsibility by the water company. In practice I think it does sadly mean that water companies may often have not been aware of regular trouble spots until blockages have backed up (often more than once) causing inconvenience and damage of exactly the type the OP is worried about. In many places I think they adopted a suck it and see type approach, but not literally

The OP should ask their solicitor to get confirmation from the seller and maybe the water company that there have been no blockages in the last two years and if a truthful negative response is obtained then that will be a treble protection viz:

1. Buildings and Contents standard Escape of Water cover (less typical excess £100-£250 under each?)
2. No reports of previous problems
3. Backstop knowledge that Water Company owns shared sewer drains so it is they that bear all cost of maintaining and fixing the shared drains. I believe the water company will also come out and unblock that part of the sewer drain that is yours only i.e. between your house and the junction drain in the garden but in that case they reserve the right to make a small charge (£100 with our local company last time I checked).

I can relate to what you are saying. In a previous house we had the manhole for the sewer in our garage for 4 houses. One day we had a garage flooded with sewerage (not nice!). It turned out the house next door, they had been flushing disposable nappies down the loo. We had to bring in Dyna Rod to clear it and they told us to claim on our insurance. It turned out the sewer pipe on our property was not covered and was our responsibility. In the end the two houses shared the bill. Hopefully things have changed now.

I have however never thought that Buildings and Contents Insurance covered sewer pipes unless as L & G said, somehow you drilled into one of them in your house and caused a leak which is then covered by accidental damage insurance. I explained the situation fully to L & G and that was what they told me as I explained above. It appears they regard the sewer pipe as the responsibility of Severn Trent and only if the pipe is broken accidentally would we be covered by our household insurance.

I will however, as suggested, go back to our solicitor and ask for confirmation that there has never been a problem with the previous occupiers with regard to the sewer pipe and that they have not made claims in the last 2 yrs on their insurance for same.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Yes I appreciate it's a leap of faith for a layman to go with the flow in this thread - I think what you've got here, JW, is two or three of us insurance knowledgeable types who intuitively know you can rely on the standard buildings and contents insurances to pick up the tab (less the policy excesses) should more or less any escape of water or flood (mains/drains/burst tank/whatever) damage the buldings or contents irrespective of what pipe or tank it came from!

You are right to say that it might be doubtful that much standard insurance cover has ever been available for actually repairing broken buried drain pipes in the garden, but as I said earlier shared sewer pipes on your land are now not your property to worry about - they actually belong to the water company.

Technically that part of your sewer pipe in the house and from the house to the shared junction in the garden is indeed your own sewer pipe, but as I have said, if you check your local water company's website advice, you will probably find that they will be willing to come out and tackle a blockage for you on the proviso that if they discover it is definitely in your sole bit of the pipe they'll levy a nominal charge afterwards (but no doubt varies from company to company).

Incidentally, to accidentally damage a sewer pipe anywhere in the house or garden usually involves more than just a drill - more like careless use of a jack hammer I would think!

With regards to checking out the record over the past two years (since the water company took ownership on 1-Oct-2011, you may even be able to chat to Severn Water initially on their "report a drains leak/flood" line no doubt published on their website. Make sure they aren't busy with any emergency and then tell them exactly which address you are interested in and ask if there have been any problems with the drains on their files since they took over. In our area I have found the people manning the line are some of the nicest most accommodating customer service people you could hope to get on the end of a telephone line!

Leodogger

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

Yes I appreciate it's a leap of faith for a layman to go with the flow in this thread - I think what you've got here, JW, is two or three of us insurance knowledgeable types who intuitively know you can rely on the standard buildings and contents insurances to pick up the tab (less the policy excesses) should more or less any escape of water or flood (mains/drains/burst tank/whatever) damage the buldings or contents irrespective of what pipe or tank it came from!

You are right to say that it might be doubtful that much standard insurance cover has ever been available for actually repairing broken buried drain pipes in the garden, but as I said earlier shared sewer pipes on your land are now not your property to worry about - they actually belong to the water company.

Technically that part of your sewer pipe in the house and from the house to the shared junction in the garden is indeed your own sewer pipe, but as I have said, if you check your local water company's website advice, you will probably find that they will be willing to come out and tackle a blockage for you on the proviso that if they discover it is definitely in your sole bit of the pipe they'll levy a nominal charge afterwards (but no doubt varies from company to company).

Incidentally, to accidentally damage a sewer pipe anywhere in the house or garden usually involves more than just a drill - more like careless use of a jack hammer I would think!

With regards to checking out the record over the past two years (since the water company took ownership on 1-Oct-2011, you may even be able to chat to Severn Water initially on their "report a drains leak/flood" line no doubt published on their website. Make sure they aren't busy with any emergency and then tell them exactly which address you are interested in and ask if there have been any problems with the drains on their files since they took over. In our area I have found the people manning the line are some of the nicest most accommodating customer service people you could hope to get on the end of a telephone line!

Yes, we were given a number by Severn Trent for their "Leakage Dept" to check what we would be covered for if there was a leak, but when I rang and left a message, no-one rang back. Might ring again to see if they have any records of any previous report, though having asked the solicitor to check for confirmation from the previous owners, if there was subsequently a previous problem not reported by them, surely they would be held to account on the basis that you have to declare any problems with a property when you sell it (noisy neighbour complaints, disputes over boundaries etc.) ??:)

Spikey1

Hi JWhite,

There was a time when 'flood' was indeed dependent upon an inundation of water from a river, watercourse or other natural source. However that has changed, here is an extract from the FOS website;

"We take the view that a flood does not have to be a sudden and violent event. We generally say that flooding can happen where water enters (or builds up in) a property slowly and steadily - and it does not necessarily have to be caused by the forces of nature. So water escaping from something inside a property could be the cause of a flood just as a river bursting its banks can. It is the fact that water has built up and caused damage that it is important. However, damage caused in this way is usually covered by insurers anyway under the escape of water peril.
We think this definition of a flood is in line with consumers' expectations".

So, as you can see, any damage caused by escaping water from the sewer pipe (regardless of the fact that the pipe is not yours) will be covered by either the EoW or Flood cover in your policy.

Leodogger

Spikey1 wrote: »

Hi JWhite,

There was a time when 'flood' was indeed dependent upon an inundation of water from a river, watercourse or other natural source. However that has changed, here is an extract from the FOS website;

"We take the view that a flood does not have to be a sudden and violent event. We generally say that flooding can happen where water enters (or builds up in) a property slowly and steadily - and it does not necessarily have to be caused by the forces of nature. So water escaping from something inside a property could be the cause of a flood just as a river bursting its banks can. It is the fact that water has built up and caused damage that it is important. However, damage caused in this way is usually covered by insurers anyway under the escape of water peril.
We think this definition of a flood is in line with consumers' expectations".

So, as you can see, any damage caused by escaping water from the sewer pipe (regardless of the fact that the pipe is not yours) will be covered by either the EoW or Flood cover in your policy.

That is handy to know. Our solicitor sent me an email yesterday (yes she works on a Sunday!), to say that she will nevertheless get confirmation from the previous owners that there were no claims and no issues with the sewer pipe during the last few years, although I have relayed back the comments from Severn Trent and Legal & General.

I have to say my solicitor has been very thorough in this house purchase, much more than we have experienced in previous house moves. I won't hesitate to recommend her to any friends and relatives looking for a conveyancing solicitor We had a sewer pipe in one of our other houses (some 35 yrs ago), underneath the garage (as I think I mentioned in a previous post), but nothing was mentioned by our solicitor when purchasing and we did end up with problems with a blockage which we ended up paying for. You can never be too careful when it comes to what you are liable for when you are buying a house