Water is the one thing your homeowners policy is fussiest about

Ask most homeowners whether they are covered for water damage and they will say yes without hesitating. It is a reasonable thing to assume and it is roughly a third true.

Insurers do not think in terms of water damage. They think in terms of where the water came from, and the answer to that question decides everything.

Water one: it burst, suddenly, inside the house

A supply line lets go behind a wall. A water heater splits. A pipe freezes in an unheated space and bursts when it thaws. This is sudden and accidental discharge, and a standard homeowners policy generally covers the resulting damage.

There is a distinction inside it worth knowing. The policy is much more willing to pay for the damage the water did than for the failed component itself, and it is unenthusiastic about damage that happened slowly. A pipe that has been weeping behind a cabinet for two years, quietly rotting the subfloor, is usually characterised as maintenance rather than an accident. Sudden is doing real work in that phrase.

Water two: it came back up the drain

Sewer and drain backup is the one that surprises people most, because it feels exactly like a burst pipe from inside the house. It is generally excluded from the standard form, and it is generally available as an endorsement for a modest amount.

It is worth pricing in this part of Pennsylvania. A good deal of the housing stock around Allegheny County sits on older municipal infrastructure, plenty of it on combined systems that carry storm water and sewage in the same pipe. A heavy summer storm on a system like that has somewhere to go and the somewhere is occasionally a basement. If your basement is finished, or if the furnace, the water heater and the panel live down there, the exposure is not small.

Water three: it rose

Flood, meaning water that arrived from outside and rose, is excluded from essentially every standard homeowners policy in the country. Not limited. Excluded. It is a separate policy, always.

The most common misunderstanding here is the mapping. People check whether they are in a designated high risk flood area, find they are not, and conclude the exposure is somebody else's problem. A substantial share of flood claims come from outside high risk zones, because water is indifferent to cartography. Western Pennsylvania has hills, creeks and a great deal of rain, and a property can flood because of what a developer did upstream three years ago rather than because of any line on a map.

Outside a high risk area, flood cover is usually cheaper than people assume, and if you carry a mortgage inside one, your lender will require it regardless.

The one page that tells you where you stand

• Pull your declarations page and look for a water backup or sewer backup endorsement. If it is not listed, you almost certainly do not have it.
• Check whether you hold a separate flood policy. It will be its own document, not a line on the homeowners policy.
• Note the deductible. Some policies apply a separate, higher deductible to water losses specifically.
• Work out what is actually in the basement. Finished space, mechanicals and stored belongings change the size of the exposure considerably.

Why this is worth an independent agency

Appetite for water risk varies more between carriers than almost anything else. One company will add backup coverage happily at a limit that is actually useful; another offers a token amount and would rather not discuss it. One is comfortable with a finished basement in an older neighbourhood; another is not.

An agent contracted to a single insurance company can only tell you what that company thinks. Full Circle Insurance is independent and holds appointments with eight carriers, so the question becomes which of them wants your particular house rather than whether the one available company will tolerate it. The office is at 2559 Brandt School Rd in Wexford and the number is (724) 935-8000.