On a Tuesday night in April, around eleven, I went down to the basement in my socks to listen to the sump pump. It had been raining for three days. The pump was kicking on every few minutes, the float clicking up, the motor humming, the water rushing out the discharge pipe. I stood there for a while doing math I didn't like: a 2009 pump, no backup, and a basement full of the things that keep our house running.
A few weeks later, on the same call where I asked about our 18 percent renewal, I put a simple question to our agent at the time. If that pump had quit that night and the basement took on water, would our homeowners policy have paid for the damage? The answer, as it was explained to me, was no. Water that backs up through a drain or overflows from a sump wasn't covered under our policy unless we'd added a water backup endorsement, and we hadn't. I'd assumed it was included. A lot of people do, apparently.
Adding it when we switched
When we shopped our insurance in June, I made water backup coverage a requirement for every quote. We ended up with Auto-Owners, effective July 1, at a $2,500 deductible. The $10,000 water backup endorsement accounts for about $68 of our $1,148 yearly premium.
Before we signed, I asked the agent to send us the actual endorsement language, not just a summary, and Tessa and I read it at the kitchen table. The gist, as I understood it: it covers direct damage from water that backs up through sewers or drains, or overflows from a sump or sump pump, up to the limit, after the deductible. The agent was also very clear about what it isn't. It isn't flood insurance. Surface water coming in from outside after heavy rain is a separate thing entirely. And as I read it, the endorsement pays for damage from the water, not for a new pump.
I'm paraphrasing a policy, and I'm not an insurance person. If you're thinking about this for your own house, the wording in your own policy and a conversation with your own agent are what count.
Why $10,000
Higher limits were available for more money. To decide, I walked the basement with the house sheet open and listed what six inches of water would ruin or damage:
- The washer and the electric dryer
- The dehumidifier
- The bottom of the furnace and the water heater, which might mean service calls or worse
- Storage boxes, a shelf of tools and the holiday decorations
- Cleanup: water extraction, drying equipment, disinfecting
Our basement is unfinished. Painted block walls, a concrete floor, no carpet, no drywall, no finished room down there. That keeps the possible damage lower than in a house with a finished family room. My rough total came out somewhere between $6,000 and $12,000, depending on how bad it got and whether the furnace and water heater survived. $10,000 felt like the right fit for that basement. If we ever finish it, this number changes.
What it doesn't change
With a $2,500 deductible, a small backup is still entirely our problem. If the pump fails and we catch it with an inch of water and a wet box of Christmas lights, we're mopping and paying for it ourselves. The endorsement is for the bad night, not the annoying one.
It also doesn't fix the pump. The downspout extensions and regrading in May helped a lot; the pump runs far less in heavy rain than it did in April. But the pump itself is 16 years old, and when I told Gary about the new coverage, he nodded and said, "Water always wins." He meant it kindly. He also meant that insurance pays after the fact, and I'd rather the water never got in.
So the sump pump has moved up the watch list on the house sheet, and a battery backup is on the someday list right below it. Tessa asked what someday means in this case. I said before it fails. She said, "So, a date," and I didn't have one.
What I haven't decided yet is how many more springs I let a 16-year-old pump be the only thing between our basement and an April rain.
