Does Homeowners Insurance Pay for a Sewer Backup in New York?

Usually not, unless the policy carries a water backup endorsement. The standard homeowners form excludes water that backs up through sewers or drains, and New York's Department of Financial Services describes the endorsement as how some insurers remove that exclusion, for an extra premium and up to a dollar limit you choose, so look for it on your declarations page before anything is thrown out.

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The exclusion, in the standard policy's own words

Most people find this out on the worst night to find it out. The water exclusion in the standard Homeowners 3 form published by the Insurance Services Office removes coverage for water which backs up through sewers or drains, or which overflows or is otherwise discharged from a sump, sump pump or related equipment. The 2011 edition adds that the exclusion applies regardless of whether the water was caused by an act of nature or otherwise. The same form also says a sump is not part of the plumbing system for the purposes of the plumbing coverage, which closes the obvious argument before anyone makes it. So the question that decides a backup claim is not how much damage there is, or even what caused it. It is whether your policy was changed from the standard wording, and that is something you can check tonight.

What a water backup endorsement is, and how to find out if you have one

New York's Department of Financial Services describes it plainly: some homeowners insurers offer an endorsement that covers sewer backups, including sump pump failure, which for an additional premium eliminates the exclusion up to a dollar limit the policyholder selects. The wording varies between insurers but generally applies to several kinds of backup, including municipal sewer lines, toilets and sump pumps, and the regulator's advice is to ask whether it is available and to add it. The Insurance Information Institute says backup coverage is available from most insurers. To find out whether you already bought it, look at the declarations page, the summary sheet at the front of the policy, for an endorsement naming water backup or sewer and drain backup with a dollar figure beside it. That figure matters as much as the endorsement. It is the limit you picked, and it is the ceiling on what the endorsement pays whatever the damage in the basement turns out to be. If you cannot find it, your agent can tell you in one conversation.

Flood insurance does not fill the gap

It is a reasonable guess, and it is wrong. The Department of Financial Services says homeowners insurance excludes flooding, generally defined as water coming in above the foundation, while a sewer or sump pump backup comes from lines below the foundation. Those are different events to an insurer. The regulator adds a warning that surprises people who do carry flood insurance: even with a flood policy, a sump pump failure caused by a flood is not likely to be covered, since neither the flood policy nor the homeowners policy alone is likely to cover that damage. Flood coverage itself, the same guide notes, is generally always excluded from homeowners and tenants policies and is bought only through federal programs. The endorsement is the thing written for sewage coming up a drain. If you have neither, the decision in front of you is about cleanup and prevention rather than a claim.

Tonight: stop using water and find out whether it is the public sewer

Stop running water anywhere in the house, because every flush, shower and washing machine cycle has to leave through the same drain that is failing. Then find out whether the problem is on the public side, which takes one phone conversation. For homes on the public sewer within the county's Consolidated Sanitary District, Onondaga County WEP asks residents with sewage backing up to phone 315-435-3157, a line it answers at any time, every day, and says its team inspects the public side of the system, usually beginning at the cleanout or the vent pipe in the yard and following the line toward the street and the main. Inside the city limits the number is different: WEP sends City of Syracuse properties to the city's DPW, 315-448-2489. The district is not the whole metro: WEP's list of member municipalities does not include the villages of North Syracuse, Baldwinsville, Marcellus or Skaneateles, and outside the district WEP directs residents to their own town or village, usually its public works department. Write down whom you spoke to, when, and what they found. Whatever the policy says, that record is worth having.

Do not try to clear the line yourself tonight

A rented drain machine is the obvious next step, and National Grid asks you not to take it. The utility warns that unclogging sewer pipes can create gas leaks, and asks customers to always have a professional inspection of a sewage blockage before attempting to clear it. The reason is a cross bore: utilities have found gas pipes, and communications and electric wires, accidentally installed straight through sewer pipes, and a cutting head that reaches one can cause a fire or an explosion. It is not a common event, and it is not one to find out about in your own basement. A backup that has stopped rising once the house stopped using water can wait for a plumber who knows what to check for. One that keeps rising with nothing running upstairs is most likely coming from beyond the house, which makes the public side the first question and not the plumbing.

If the public sewer caused it, a 90 day clock may apply

Sometimes a backup is the fault of nobody in particular, and sometimes a homeowner believes a city, town or village's handling of its sewer caused it. New York puts a short deadline on the second case, and it is easy to miss while you are dealing with the basement. General Municipal Law section 50-e requires that, where a notice of claim is a condition of suing a public corporation, it be served within 90 days after the claim arises, in writing and sworn, stating the claimant's name and address, the nature of the claim, the time, place and manner in which it arose and the damage so far as then practicable. Section 50-i applies that to actions against a city, county, town, village, fire district or school district for property damage alleged to have been caused by their negligence, and requires the action itself within one year and 90 days. Nothing on this page says any municipality is at fault. It says that if you think one might be, the time to speak to a lawyer is within weeks, not after the insurance question is settled.

Keeping people safe while it is still on the floor, and if you rent

Sewage is a health question before it is a cleanup question. The CDC's guidance is to wear rubber boots, rubber gloves and goggles if sewage is involved, to keep children and pets away from the area until the cleanup is complete, and to wash with soap and water afterward, cleaning and treating any cut or sore that was exposed. Anything you plan to claim for should be photographed where it sits before it goes out to the curb. If you rent, your landlord's policy does not protect your belongings: New York's insurance regulator says in terms that a landlord does not insure a tenant's personal property, and lists sewer and drain backup as coverage a renter may need to add to a renters policy. Cleaning a basement after sewage is separate work that begins once the backup has stopped and the source is known.

When you may not need a plumber tonight

Two situations often end without one. If the public side check finds the problem in the public sewer, that side is the public body's to deal with rather than a job you hire anyone for, and the drain in your basement may clear when theirs does. And if the water is overflowing from a toilet tank rather than coming up out of a drain, that is the toilet's own parts: like for like replacement of a fill valve or the flush parts is on the county's list of work that needs no plumbing permit, and closing the small valve behind the toilet stops it. If sewage is still coming up with nothing running in the house, or the public side has been checked and is clear, that is the part that cannot wait. Tell us what is coming up, where, and whether the utility has looked at it, and we will match you with a licensed, insured plumber who covers your area.