Homeowners Insurance question?! AKA-Niagra of the Garage :(

[Theoretica]

Ok mamas I need some ideas here!

Our bathroom sits right above the garage, and about a month ago while we were out of town (OF COURSE) this avalanche of water came through the garage. My stepmom was cat-visiting and noticed it, so she put a bucket there to collect water.

It didn't happen again until yesterday. Not a trickle. We didn't know what it could have been, but couldn't find the problem so we left the bucket and went on with life.

But yesterday, I was getting out of the van and realized with horror that there was water trickling into the bucket again! I look in the bucket and there's about 4 gallons of water in there.

Last night I went into the bathroom and dug around under the carpet (don't get me started, it was like that when we bought it LOL) and THE SUBFLOOR IS SQUISHY!!!! Allllllllllllllll around the bathtub the subflooring is soggy and 'push-able', but mostly in this one area right above where the waterfall is in the garage.

Is this something that we can fix through our homeowners insurance? From what we can tell the entire subfloor will have to be replaced and the leak, wherever it is, will have to be fixed as well. This will be thousands of dollars! I'm freaking out, don't know what to do! We have owned the house for 3.5 years, never had a claim...but we can't afford to fix this!!!

Help!

[cristeen]

You're going to have to start with a call to a plumber for diagnosis. Then you're going to need to call your insurance agent and ask whether or not this might be covered. I'd imagine in some states (and some policies) it would be and in some it wouldn't.

Ultimately the first thing to do is find the leak and stop it from continuing. Hopefully it's not a huge fix. In the long run allowing the floor to dry back out and being careful with it may buy you the time you need to save up for the fix, assuming insurance won't cover it. I know my aunt and uncle had a squishy sub floor in their bathroom for about a decade... we all just learned to tread carefully until they finally were able to get it fixed. But stopping the leak and letting it dry out is going to help prevent a mold problem, assuming you don't already have one. If you do have a mold problem, then that's a whole 'nother level.

[sunnysandiegan]

We just had a major flood this past May (entire first floor was ankle-deep in "clean" water). Most things were covered by insurance, but not everything. Our supply line from the wall to the powder room sink busted open one day without warning. Fixing the supply line was NOT covered. Insurance did, however, cover the cost for ServiceMaster to do the "dry-out" and a specialty company to do asbestos and mold testing (both companies were paid directly by insurance). I hired a flood repair company (friends of friends) to do some of the repair work and the owner wrote up the COMPLETE estimate for returning our home back to its original condition. After some negotiation, insurance paid us the amount for those services/materials at a mix of insurance-regulated prices and real costs. These are NOT the same in most cases. I had to work hard for real costs on the items I could quantify and replace exactly. We ended up putting our home back together differently that how it was before the flood. In order to keep the costs within the insurance check amount, we did a LOT of the work ourselves. It was a trade-off for higher quality and/or newer materials and it was TOTALLY worth it, in our opinions.

Some tips:
~ Call your insurance agent ASAP. Ask questions about this specific situation and ask DETAILED questions. Many people have no idea EXACTLY what is covered by their policy and it is often a shock. Most agents will automatically open a claim and transfer you to a claims adjuster. Hold off until all your questions are answered by the agent.

~ Agents and adjusters and contractors all come at this situation with a VERY different filter. Agents want to make clients happy and sell them a policy. Adjusters work for the insurance company and need to make sure alllllll rules are followed, while erring on the side of the company as often as possible. Contractors want to get the most money they can from the insurance company and make the homeowner happy, while keeping their bottom line in mind at all times. The homeowner has to remember all this and work for your OWN best interests.

~ In my experiences, you'll get the most answers from your agent and a trusted contractor. If you get to know the adjusters (we had three for different aspects of our claim) and work within their rules, you can get better than average service.

All that said, your situation is different than mine and may be like night and day with regards to being covered or not. From talking to friends about water damage, it seems that urgent and immediate and OBVIOUS water-related issues are most often covered (not every single thing related to the issue, but the majority). Whereas small and less obvious water damage is less often covered and/or requires a lot more work before the issue can be determined if it is indeed covered or not. Your situation seems smack in the middle. Water trickling into the garage into a bucket is obvious something is WRONG. No water pouring out upstairs to immediately indicate the source might be problematic. Under my policy guidelines, the work required to find the source would NOT be covered upfront and may not be covered at all. Depends on the source of the issue. Therefore, I recommend you find a friend or family member to help you figure out the source of the problem right away and stop using that bathroom if at all possible.

During the whole flood mess I mentioned above, we had numerous (!) other issue arise along the way. When it rains, it pours....as the saying goes... Anyway, we discovered a leak from upstairs to our living room. I called the agent and she immediately wanted to open a new claim (this - multiple issue arise at the same time - is apparently rather common). I stalled her with many questions and we decided NOT to make a claim on this issue. We cut open the wall and ceiling ourselves because plumbers wanted $1200+ for leak detection services and repair work for this general type of problem. Before cutting open the wall, I talked to everyone I know practically and a few strangers, too. I had a pretty good idea what to look for after all that Q&A and we found the leak ourselves. It was a $2 part!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most helpful people I spoke with were maintenance people who work on homes the same age/design/development as ours. It took awhile to find those people, but I kept asking friends and family and strangers and eventually I got the info needed. Persistence pays off and keeps your costs significantly lower.

Best wishes!!!