Will My Home Insurance Cover That?

As a homeowner, all kinds of expenses come into play that you may not have expected when you purchased the home. With a home inspection, we try to remove some of those future “mystery expenses” by giving home buyers as much knowledge as possible about how everything is working in the home at the time of purchase. But when a home repair is needed, whether it’s a line item on your home inspection report or something that happens down the road, at some point all homeowners find themselves asking, “Will my home insurance cover that?”

This week we’re taking a look at a few home inspection problems we found in the field from the perspective of how it will get repaired. Who pays for that?

Stucco: The Material You Love to Hate

Stucco probably deserves its own column. We love our stucco in the South, and there’s no shortage of it in North Texas. If you are buying a home with stucco there are two important things to know:

1) Have a very thorough inspection.
2) Get a very good insurance home insurance policy.

We see a lot of damaged stucco doing home inspections, like in this video. Your home insurance is not going to cover pre-existing damage, so you’ll want to deal with the seller’s insurance first on anything you find in an inspection.

I spoke with Joe Stransky with the Todd Campbell Agency with Farmers Insurance, and his advice on stucco homes is to be sure to get a policy that would be considered limited matching coverage. So for example, if you have hail damage on half the house, and they can’t match the exact material, they will cover a similar replacement on the whole house. Stransky also pointed out the two types of stucco —traditional hard coat and synthetic — and that insurance companies “don’t like” synthetic stucco.

“Nothing To See Here”

“The agent said the roof is fine.” Well, maybe we’ll just take a look-see anyway.

The roof is one of the major parts of the house, and you need to get a good idea of the shape it’s in before you purchase a house. If it needs to be replaced or repaired, there’s a good chance the seller’s insurance will cover that. If you buy a roof that already needs to be replaced or repaired, that’s not going to work out how you want it to.

A Solid Foundation is Best

Here we have a wood pier on a pier-and-beam foundation that has been repaired badly. There’s a little wood shim at the top so we know it’s been leveled up. It’s wood-to-ground contact, which is a conducive condition for wood-destroying insects, and wood also absorbs water (you can see water staining at the base of the pier), contributing to the pier’s instability. When they put that shim in, they should have replaced the pier with concrete.

Will my insurance pay for that? Probably not, but you should get the information about who did this repair from the seller to see if there is a warranty. Homeowners’ insurance generally does not cover foundation repair unless there is some kind of storm or natural cause involved.

Ah the joys of homeownership. If this column made you as stressed as it made me, here are some silly things people do in their homes to lighten you right back up.