Mains water supply pipe beyond property boundary insurance

luci

Tom720 said:

Baldytyke88 said:

Surely, a main water supply that is not on your property is the responsibility of the water company?

The pipe after the mains stopcock is apparently the responsibility of the homeowner, at least in the view of Welsh Water.

In Scotland, the water board is only responsible for the mains water pipe up to the boundary of your property. It's the only utility that isn't covered right to the electric meter, gas meter or main phone socket inside the home.

luci

Tom720 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Why does the OP want to insure the pipe before it crosses into their curtilage and becomes their problem?
I suspect this pipe might not be an insurable risk for the OP as the OP has no interest in the pipe.  That is interest in a legal / ownership sense, not lack of actual concern if the pipe bursts.

I began insuring the pipe on the advice of my solicitor when I first bought my house in 1993. It's definitely an insurable risk and Homeserve paid for a repair roughly halfway along the pipe around eight years ago. My only problem is that Homeserve appear to be the only company offering such cover beyond the property boundary and in order to have the insurance I need to buy a policy which now includes several home emergency addons which I'd never use.

Some, but not all, home insurance companies provide cover for escape of water from water pipes. Before buying home insurance, I read the policy wording and make sure that water pipes are included and it also has Trace and Access cover.

luci

Tom720 said:

luci said:

I agree with the others. If it's not within your boundary then it's not your responsibility, it's the responsibility of Welsh Water. IIRC, Homeserve insurance only covers leaks from mains water supply pipe within your own boundary.

Just for info if anyone's interested. Scottish Water will repair one leak within your boundary FOC. We had a second leak recently, as the mains pipes in our area have reached the end of their  life and there have been leaks at various properties. We were told that we would have to replace the mains pipe from the toby on the street to the stopcock inside the house, at our own expense. 

I was going to ask the cost for getting that done anyway, as I didn't want repeated leaks and the front garden having to be dug up each time. However, I didn't appreciate having a gun held to my head and told what I had to do within my own boundary and said as much to the water board engineer. He was very nice, but he told me that SW can and do prosecute people who don't comply. I think this is outrageous, as some people may not have the money to do it if their home insurance didn't cover it.

We did get it done at our own expense. It involved getting a contractor to dig up and lay a new mains supply pipe from the toby to the wall of our house. We then needed a plumber to feed the pipe under the house and connect it to the stopcock.

Welsh Water detected a leak on the pipe around eight years ago and gave me a limited time to fix it, after which they would charge the cost of (a highly arbitrary) 550 litres per hour. Homeserve sent a bunch of cowboys with a mini digger who dug a trench across my neighbour's field from close to the main road about 350m uphill from my property. Standard home insurance would have checked the first 100m or so from my house and in this case not found a leak which was a further 150m upstream on my neighbour's land. There's no doubt that I need to insure the pipe but with a 'pipe only' policy if such exists.

A quick Google search found this:
https://homeemergencyassist.com/cover/home-emergency/plumbing-drainage/water-supply-pipe

Tom720

luci said:

Tom720 said:

luci said:

I agree with the others. If it's not within your boundary then it's not your responsibility, it's the responsibility of Welsh Water. IIRC, Homeserve insurance only covers leaks from mains water supply pipe within your own boundary.

Just for info if anyone's interested. Scottish Water will repair one leak within your boundary FOC. We had a second leak recently, as the mains pipes in our area have reached the end of their  life and there have been leaks at various properties. We were told that we would have to replace the mains pipe from the toby on the street to the stopcock inside the house, at our own expense. 

I was going to ask the cost for getting that done anyway, as I didn't want repeated leaks and the front garden having to be dug up each time. However, I didn't appreciate having a gun held to my head and told what I had to do within my own boundary and said as much to the water board engineer. He was very nice, but he told me that SW can and do prosecute people who don't comply. I think this is outrageous, as some people may not have the money to do it if their home insurance didn't cover it.

We did get it done at our own expense. It involved getting a contractor to dig up and lay a new mains supply pipe from the toby to the wall of our house. We then needed a plumber to feed the pipe under the house and connect it to the stopcock.

Welsh Water detected a leak on the pipe around eight years ago and gave me a limited time to fix it, after which they would charge the cost of (a highly arbitrary) 550 litres per hour. Homeserve sent a bunch of cowboys with a mini digger who dug a trench across my neighbour's field from close to the main road about 350m uphill from my property. Standard home insurance would have checked the first 100m or so from my house and in this case not found a leak which was a further 150m upstream on my neighbour's land. There's no doubt that I need to insure the pipe but with a 'pipe only' policy if such exists.

A quick Google search found this:
https://homeemergencyassist.com/cover/home-emergency/plumbing-drainage/water-supply-pipe

Thanks for looking. I was actually insured for two years with HomeEmergencyAssist after speaking at length with one of their salespeople and explaining my requirement in detail. Towards the end of year two I did what I should have done first of course and read through the policy where I found a specific exclusion for supply pipe leaks beyond the property boundary.

On an unconnected note I insured my buildings and contents with the broker 'PolicyExpert' also for a two year period. This was a standard policy arranged through one of several major insurers and didn't cover the water pipe outwith the property boundary. No surprises there and I was still insuring my supply pipe on a separate Homeserve policy. When the policy came up for renewal I asked if there was any possibility of adding full supply pipe coverage to the policy. During that conversation it was revealed that they don't cover properties on plots greater than one acre. This exclusion isn't raised on any application form. I downloaded the policies of eight insurers the broker dealt with at that time and the word 'plot' didn't occur in any of them.

With more research I came across the story of a woman who'd insured through 'PolicyExpert' and in the early days of coverage had made a phone enquiry about some minor detail. In the course of conversation she revealed that she owned a paddock across the road from her home. The broker classed the paddock as part of her plot, cancelled the policy and gave a full refund. Sadly, her previous insurer refused to offer cover at the renewal rate as there had been no continuity.

Runnis

We too live in rural Shropshire on the Welsh border. Our water is connected to the mains on the main road in Wales. Our water pipe crosses the field of a friendly farmer, goes under a river, and then crosses another field of a not so friendly farmer until it is connected to the meter belonging to Welsh Water. This was not explained to us when we bought the house in 2006 we were just told it was mains water which technically it is. This year we had a huge leak. WW sent someone to help us find it but he couldn’t. We were given one month to find the leak and repair it. Luckily for us people helped us and the leak was found just above the water line of the river and it was repaired. Luckily with all the dry weather this summer the river was extremely low.  A few weeks later there was another leak and this was repaired and some of the pipe renewed. WW were very understanding and tried their best to help. They gave us £150 towards paying for repairs and did not charge us for the nearly £2,000 water that was wasted. However, we too would like to insure against this happening in the future but reading the posts it does not seem that there is an insurance company who would take this on.