Will having your house water turned off due to leak count as making house unliveable for insurance?

Sportacus

Situation is there is leak coming up from the kitchen floor, where the mains pipe enters the house, this is before the interior stop !!!!!! and water meter.  Unlikely I'll have this fixed soon as it will need removal of kitchen units and digging up the floor, meaning water has to be turned off at stop !!!!!! in the street.  Would my insurer likely accept having no water as making the house unliveable and so pay for alternate accommodation?  I could leave the water on, but the leak is slowly damaging our kitchen cupboards and possibly also the tiled floor - so could cost more in the end.

theoretica

As it is before the meter, is it the water board's responsibility? 

If the insurance company do cover other accommodation, it would only be as an emergency measure until someone could be got in to fix the leak asap - to minimise insurance costs -rather than hanging on to 'not fix it soon', depending on if you mean hours or weeks by soon.  Do you have home emergency cover? 

Sportacus

I don't have home emergency cover.  I don't think it's the water board's responsibility because although it is before the meter, it's pipework that is inside my property.  I'd only want to be in alternative accommodation for as short a time as possible, but I don't want to compromise on the quality of the repair by getting the only emergency plumber available today, who will probably wreck my kitchen units when removing them to get access.  I'd rather wait to have a professional kitchen fitter remove them and refit after the repair.

theoretica

Sounds like you have thought it through.

If the insurers say no, I remember a couple of times when I was a child we were without water for 2-3 days and bought in cheap bottled water and filled a few buckets for loo flushing - once we had warning the mains was being shut off so filled the bath before hand, the other time it was our pipe that was crushed and a neighbour let us use their outside tap.

user1977

Sportacus said:

I could leave the water on, but the leak is slowly damaging our kitchen cupboards and possibly also the tiled floor - so could cost more in the end.

Just turn it on briefly when you need a top-up?

Smithcom

Sportacus said:

Situation is there is leak coming up from the kitchen floor, where the mains pipe enters the house, this is before the interior stop !!!!!! and water meter.  Unlikely I'll have this fixed soon as it will need removal of kitchen units and digging up the floor, meaning water has to be turned off at stop !!!!!! in the street.  Would my insurer likely accept having no water as making the house unliveable and so pay for alternate accommodation?  I could leave the water on, but the leak is slowly damaging our kitchen cupboards and possibly also the tiled floor - so could cost more in the end.

Not in itself.   There would, almost always, need to be a valid property damage claim. 

Are you making a Trace & Access claim for the digging up/tracing? 

SC