Water Leak behind cabinets

DullGreyGuy

spluff said:

DullGreyGuy said:

spluff said:

cw8825 said:

XRS200 said:

First post says Ageas doesn't it

Thanks for pointing out. 

They won’t cover it.  Finding the leak is  specifically excluded unless you have paid extra and I would like to think the op would know if they paid extra to add it on

Thanks for this update.

• Sometimes it’s not easy to find where water or oil is leaking from. So, providing your buildings have been damaged by the leaking water or oil, we’ll cover any reasonable costs you have to pay to find the leak, and that includes the cost of repairs to walls, floors or ceilings.

I presume that a damp stain on the floor behind the kitchen cupboards is not classed as building damage?

• We won’t pay for repairs to the pipework or other parts of the water or heating system unless they’re caused by freezing. If they’re damaged for any other reason, this part of the policy won’t cover you.

So even if they did find the location.  They wouldn't fix it because it wasn't caused by ice.

What you require is Trace and Access cover, its on mid to high range products and not on basic cover. 

Insurers dont typically cover the cost of actually repairing the leak itself but will cover the damage caused by the leak. So on a decent policy the insurer pays hundreds or thousands to find the leak, the policyholder pays a hundred or two to fix the leak and the insurer then pays thousands or tens of thousands to repair all the damage the escaped water caused. 

You get similar with fire claims on motor, they dont cover the cause of the fire but cover the resultant damage, often it means the customer has to pay £1 for a new fuse and the insurer pays the rest (obv other times its a much bigger failure that caused the fire)

Thanks for the explanation.

I have just made enquiry with Ageas and trace and access is covered.  

The excess on the policy is £750.

As you said they would cover to find leak but not repair and bill me separately for that.

Any damage to units would be repaired but no guarantee a like for like replacement or they would give me the cost to buy the unit.  

They said I would have to find a plumber to do the job,

Not sure if it is actually going to be worth using insurance now.

This is the second coverage you want to look at in a policy, and tends to be slightly higher tier than T&A is Matching Sets. 

Without it you are entitled to have the damaged items alone repaired/replaced etc. If a match cannot be found then they are at most liable for contributing 50% to your cost of replacing the others that are undamaged. That will be limited to within the same room (eg if you had a kitchen and a seperate utility room with the same units and tiles and the utility room was partially damaged it would be 100% of damaged, 50% of undamaged in utility and 0% of kitchen). 

If you have matching set cover then the insurer would be liable for replacing all the matching items irrespective of if they are damaged or not, ie you'd get a new kitchen and utility room if one unit in the utility room couldn't be replaced like for like.