Insuring water pipes

[jay55]

We keep receiving letters from General des Eaux Services, from what I can understand is an insurance for cover of water pipes our side of the main meter. Our house insurance covers us for burst pipes, flooding etc, Is this worth taking out?

[grumpyaudeman]

Hi

Unless we can see the conditions on your house policy we will never know, normally damage is covered and in my experience the repairs to the faulty pipes

"Our house insurance covers us for burst pipes, flooding etc," So which pipes, rivers ,rain what does etc include

It may not be a great house policy but best read it

[NormanH]

I have a house insurance and the burst pipe insurance mentioned, since my house insurance only covers the damage done by the burst, not the repairs to the pipework etc.

Even so I was not reimbursed when a tenant's flush ran continually for  some months (I was in Hospital and unaware) and the resulting water bill was for over 3000€[:-))]

They wriggled out by saying it was not a burst pipe but a faulty mechanism, and that wasn't covered on that specific insurance.

BUT they could offer me an insurance for faulty taps, flushes etc on top....

In short, you have to be very sure of what is actually covered in an insurance.

Usually your water supplier will offer an insurance if needed for burst pipes etc..

[AnOther]

Under the Loi Warsmann you should not have to pay more than 2x your normal bill for water lost due to an undiscovered leak but as you discovered for yourself a faulty cistern did not fall under the definition.

Albeit not on your part personally to put it perfectly bluntly it's

difficult to see that as anything other than negligence so I don't think

you can really blame an insurer for not paying out for it.

As mentioned most policies seem to cover finding a leak and any actual damage caused by it but not it's repair.

I had a leak which I narrowed down to being under the concrete garage floor and having localised it then had a 'discussion' with my insurer concerning the definition of 'within the property' and whether that included under it or not but ultimately I decided that I really didn't want my garage floor dug up so I dug up the pipe just outside the garage myself and installed a small inspection chamber with an isolation tap and from there fitted a whole new section of pipe hose which I ran up the garage wall  than across it's ceiling to completely bypass the replace the old leaking piece.

[Patf]

As AnOther wrote -

'As mentioned most policies seem to cover finding a leak and any actual damage caused by it but not it's repair.'

Our house insurance is with Pacifica, and only covers water damage, not 'canalisations.' As we discovered when had a leak due to some creature chewing through a bathroom waste pipe.