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It sounds like a bad dream: You go out of town for an extended period and come home to discover that an appliance leaked and caused thousands of dollars' worth of damage. You also learn that the appliance has been leaking for two weeks. Will your insurance policy cover all the damage or are there time limits? Here's what one homeowner in Florida found out.
|The case
In September 2012, while Hugh Hicks was out of town, the water supply line to his refrigerator began leaking, slowly at first, then steadily increasing, until, by the time Hicks returned on Oct. 25, the supply line was discharging almost 1,000 gallons of water each day.
Hicks filed a claim with his “all-risks” insurer, American Integrity Insurance Company of Florida, but the company denied his claim after its expert determined that the pipe had been leaking for five weeks or more. American Integrity quoted the following provision of its policy:
We do not insure … for loss … [c]aused by … [c]onstant or repeated seepage or leakage of water … over a period of 14 or more days.
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Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].
