VA sewer line insurance - water company, dominion, or other? Worth it?
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Anonymous
| I get these notifications in the mail from time to time, and we're relatively new homeowners but with a 70 year old home. Can anyone speak to the value of sewer insurance, and what's the best route? Water company? I'm told Dominion also offers something similar. Is it worth it? Reliable? What's the difference? |
Anonymous
| I am a first time homebuyer and interested in folks experience with this too! Our inspector recommended buying them FWIW. |
Anonymous
| It’s such a minor cost, get it... |
Anonymous
| How old is your sewer line, how far does it run from house to main line, does it run under things that will be expensive to dig up, do you have a ton of tree near it... there are a ton of factors that you need to answer before you can decide it its worth it |
Anonymous
Oh my gosh. YES. I got the HomeServe and its just tacked onto my Dominion bill. Our neighbors had thousands of dollars of work mostly covered. |
Anonymous
| My mother received one of these notices, she lives in Central VA, max coverage for one term was only $1,500. Then lots of stipulations about using their contractors and doing the work they required. Also lots of reasons coverage would de denied. |
Anonymous
| Complete rip off |
Anonymous
We didn't have this and had a major sewer issue this spring. Had to replace the enter line -- required digging up our yard and the street. Our home insurance covered the destroyed basement, which we had to completely redo. It didn't cover the cost of sewer line replacement on our property, which was $8k and they didn't do a great job. (As in they did some dangerous stuff that forced us to evacuate the house for 4 days until they were completely done.) The utility took care of the part on the street and that came up on our property, but it took days and we were without water for large periods of time during the day ... with a potty-training preschooler and a kindergartener ... during COVID so we couldn't just walk down the street to use the bathroom at Starbucks or whatever. The constant turning on and off of the water caused the 80 year old pipes in our walls to spring a leak so we had to rip out part of the wall and repair those, at our expense. I forget what that came in at. Between plumbing and basic wall repair (we deferred painting to a later date), I think it was another 3.5 or 4k. It was a nightmare. If the kids had been at school, maybe it would have been more bearable. If it hadn't been COVID times, maybe more bearable (and the kids wouldn't have been home all day). If our house were larger, etc. We were without working laundry or a second bathroom for over a month and placed on restricted water use (only one bath a day, using paper plates because we couldn't wash dishes, etc) for 6 weeks. Our house was built in 1940. It all depends on how much insurance is, but this was one of the worst homeowning experiences I've had. And that includes recurrent basement water issues for years. Regular water, not sewage. It's way worse. |
Anonymous
|
Read the fine print on the policy, but if the coverage is good and the premiums aren't too high, it would be worth it if you have a 70 year old house that has never had the sewer replaced.
We didn't have up's nightmare (thank goodness), but we have a 90-year old house, and in the process of hooking up a new bathroom, they ran a camera down our sewer line and found that we had about four different types of pipe from patches over the years, and one big "belly" where a plastic pipe had sagged. It was just a matter of time before it would have caused problems. It was about 60 yards to the street, and, because we have a basement toilet, the trench was about 9 feet deep. It cost about $5,500. That doesn't include replacing the landscaping that got destroyed in the process, although I doubt an insurance policy would cover that. Luckily, we didn't have any hardscape above the pipe, and it was done in a day. We were only without the use of our facilities for 4-5 hours. I'm feeling very lucky, now! |
Anonymous
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We're having an issue with our sewer line. I paid a plumber $450 last week to put a camera down the line. We found the issue, and it was on the water compay's side. They're filing the report tomorrow.
So one way to deal with it is to get a camera inspection done jsut to see if you _may_ have issues or not. If it looks fine, it's not like roots are going to suddenly bust the line a year later.. that takes a while. So compare to the cost of a camera inspection ever few years. |
Anonymous
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It's cheap lousy coverage, usually not worth the paper the flyer is written on. Meaning, if you do have an issue, they'll find ways to deny your claim, fund a small portion of it not the full claim, or some other nonsense.
The reality is, if you can't afford a home repair of this size in an emergency ($5-10k), you probably can't afford the house. |
Anonymous
I -- sort of -- agree, but it just depends on the terms of the policy. If it's cheap and they'll pay at least a portion of the cost, it could still be worth it. I thought about suggesting that you get a camera down there and see what you've got, but I wondered if you do that and you know you have an existing issue before you sign up for the policy, if that will give them an out? I'm not sure how they would know, but the policy may require you to assert that you are unaware of any existing problems. Read the policy carefully. |
Anonymous
| We just replaced a section of our sewer line that ran under the street. Cost was about 20-25,000 so I’d advise going with the insurance if it’s not too expansive. Our neighborhood was built in the 1950’s and there have been several expensive repairs necessary in the neighborhood |
Anonymous
| There is usually a Max limit it's worthless, either buy a. New home or put in a pvc before you move in thre are no shortcuts in life stop trying to game the system |