sewer line insurance - worth it?

Hi all – I know this has been discussed before but multiple searches of the forum fail to bring it up, sorry – just wondering about the pros and cons of water and sewer line insurance. We had a major backup in the cellar a month ago…after it was cleared, we had a camera line inspection which showed the main line to the street is actually in pretty good shape, but plumber recommends sewer line insurance just in case – as he says, it’s about $9/mo and if we WERE to have an issue with the sewer main, it would be tens of thousands to fix, so why not pay the $9/mo for peace of mind? Sounds totally reasonable to me, but in my online searching it seems these companies end up not actually covering most of what you’d need them to cover if you really did have one of these major (i.e. “tens of thousands of dollars”) issues – that it’s basically a scam and when you try to make a claim, they say it’s an issue they don’t cover.

Anyone have experience with this? Seems NYC actually recommends American Water Resources.

Thanks in advance!
e

empathie00

in General Discussion 8 years and 3 months ago

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empathie00 | 8 years and 3 months ago

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Hi kms – I’m actually in Harlem and have a local plumber here that I love, he did it. He works uptown and Bronx, no Brooklyn, sorry! (for once!! …seems it’s usually the other way around) 😉

BSDOD | 8 years and 3 months ago

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My neighbor had a recent water main break, the insurance took care of it pretty quickly.

kms_bkyn | 8 years and 3 months ago

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hijack — who did you guys use to have your lines inspected? I’d love some recommendations.

empathie00 | 8 years and 3 months ago

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Thanks all. I did eventually find the old posts here on the forum so read thru all of those, and did a little more research online – it seems totally hit or miss – some people very happy b/c AWR paid for all or most of what would otherwise have been a super costly repair; others that had very bad experiences.

I went ahead and signed up – it’s $12/mo so – worst case scenario if our pipe bursts 2 years from now and AWR kicks in, great – if not, I’m out a few hundred (that said, the fact that insurance cos don’t have to fully define their terms and then can refuse to pay based on their interpretation of a term they never define for the consumer is crazy, sigh…)

Arkady – thanks – we had a bad sewer backup a few months ago and after it was cleared I did have the main inspected with a camera – it actually looks to be in excellent shape considering its age – plumber said he’d like to see a bit more pitch in a few places, but overall was good – no cracks, roots, etc. So am hoping that if AWR does inspections before signing up a new customer, they’ll see the “preexisting condition” is totally solid. We shall see!

Arkady | 8 years and 3 months ago

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To an extent, it depends on where you are & how old you think the pipes are. I didn’t take the insurance until recently when Nat’l Grid broke my water main & had to upgrade it w/ no payment on my part. I’ve now taken out just the waste line part since my water line was about to go anyway & it’s likely to be true of the waste. A neighbor of mine told me hers had broken about a year ago & the insurance kicked in & the matter was resolved in no time.

landlord | 8 years and 3 months ago

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I was gutting my basement and decided to run a camera through the sewer line because my basement would flood with an inch or so of water once every year. The camera detected a busted pipe. I called the sewer insurance company and they asked “is it flooded now”….I told them it wasn’t….they refused to send someone over. I ended up paying the 12k for the sewer line replacement because I could not hold the gut renovation just to wait for the basement to flood again. I cancelled the insurance.

bconstant | 8 years and 3 months ago

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Here are the terms and conditions:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/awr-slpp-terms.pdf

The key term to see note here is ” normal wear and usage”. This is not defined in the terms, and there are no examples.

http://www.awrusa.com/american-water-resources/awr/page19280.html

This website states:

>Normal wear and usage such as aging pipes, invasive tree roots, and seasonal changes can cause your water line to leak or break, or your sewer line to clog or break. A typical water line repair costs an NYC homeowner between $3,000 and $5,000 while an average sewer line replacement costs between $10,000 and $15,000.

This provides at least a partial definition, and seems to suggest that tree roots would be covered.

slopefarm | 8 years and 3 months ago

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Lots of past forum threads on this. I called and tried to have a discussion once about what is covered and what is excluded. they were very cagey. Unclear, for example, whether tree root penetration is covered. Now that NYC has been pushing AWR for a few years, it would be worth hearing from folks who took the policy whether they made claims, whether it was covered, and what was the reason for any denial of coverage. Not an expensive policy, but a bit of a pig in a poke.