No foundation is immune to structural damage. Issues like earth movement, flooding, and poor drainage can result in foundation damage.
The most notable signs for a damaged foundation are cracks and sinking. If you are not careful, the damage may be a safety risk. It can also lead to the collapse of your building.
Ideally, it cost as much as $15,000 to fix most foundations. Such an amount is expensive considering that you can build a new house with it. If you have home insurance, it can cover the repairs but you have to check your coverage first.
Repairs Covered By Home Insurance
Home insurance normally covers specific risks that are hard to avoid or prevent such as:
- Plumbing Problems: Most insurance will cover foundation damages caused by plumbing issues like burst pipes.
- Vandalism: If it’s established that your foundation has been damaged by thugs, home insurance will not have a problem covering the repairs.
- Explosion and Fire: You can count on home insurance to cater for repair costs associated with fire damage and explosions that are not intentional. So, expect them to do a background test to ascertain the cause before shouldering the repair costs.
- Wind damage: Wind damage is an unforeseen event that is likely to be covered by most home insurance policies.
- Falling Objects: If something like an aircraft or a meteorite falls from the sky and damages your foundation, you may get compensated
- Volcanic Eruptions: Some home insurance policies cover volcanic eruptions as they are considered unforeseen events.
- Natural Flooding: Most home insurance companies offer coverage against flooding caused by heavy rains.
Repairs Not Covered By Home Insurance
Your home insurance may refuse to cover foundation repairs if they feel that the problem could have been avoided. Some of the reasons are:
- Faulty Construction: If the foundation damage is attributed to the builder’s mistake or the use of low-quality supplies, home insurance may not cover you.
- Foundation Settlement: Home insurance companies expect you to do a preliminary study to avoid building on a settling land. So, they will not compensate you for foundation damages caused by land settlement.
- Poor soil: If it’s established that you built your house on poorly-compacted soil knowingly, you’ll not be covered.
- Root Damage: Most insurance companies expect you to build your house away from tree root damage. In case the tree roots extend to your foundation and damage it, insurance may refuse to cater for the repairs.
- Landslides: If the foundation is damaged by a landslide and it’s established you ignorantly built your house in a landslide-prone area, you’ll not be covered by insurance.
- General Wear: Houses are subject to wear over time. So, if the foundation damage is a result of normal wear, you’ll not be covered by home insurance.
Other Options Available to You
In case you have fears about the coverage provided your home insurance, you should consider the following options:
- Construction Warranty: If the reason why home insurance can’t cover the foundation repairs is because of poor construction, you should revisit your construction warranty. Most contractors give warranties for construction defects caused by poor materials and the builder’s mistakes. So, you can approach them and demand that they take care of the foundation repairs if your warranty is still active.
- Extra Coverage: In addition to your basic home insurance coverage, most home insurance companies have supplemental covers you can buy for specific foundation risks like flooding, earth movements, settling, and water bursts. So, you need to find extra coverage that works for you.
- Home fortification: Though you may not prevent natural disasters like hailstorm and landslides, there are things you can do to fortify your home against foundation damage caused by the risks. Your options include:
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- Planting cover vegetation around your house
- Depositing waste away from the slope
- Building deflection walls
- Installing underground pipes to direct water away
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- Proactiveness: Don’t wait until your foundation is poorly damaged to fix it. Once you notice signs like cracking and mold, you should consider calling in repair service. You can visit https://www.professionalfoundationrepair.com to ask for foundation repair services and inspections.
Provided that the foundation issue you are dealing with is covered by your home insurance, you can have the foundation repaired without spending a cent. In general, nothing replaces home insurance. It’s the best decision that you can ever make for your home. Since risks are mostly unforeseen, you need home insurance to come to your rescue when you are worst hit.
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