Multi-risk home insurance: all you need to know about the water damage guarantee

Multi-risk home insurance: all you need to know about the water damage guarantee
Water damage can cause extremely serious damage to your home. Its origins can be very diverse, and no one is immune! Fortunately, damage caused by water damage as well as the costs of repairing and rehabilitating your home are covered by your comprehensive home insurance policy. But what exactly does this guarantee contain? And what are the good reflexes to know in the event of a disaster?

What does your comprehensive home insurance contain?
What is comprehensive home insurance?
The multi-risk home insurance contract protects real estate and movable assets against a certain number of claims.

It covers the buildings, which includes the fittings and installations attached to them (attic, cellar, garage, garden shed, etc.), as well as all the furniture that is in the insured property at the time of the loss.

Comprehensive home insurance actually has two components:

Liability insurance, which covers bodily injury or material damage that you could cause to a third party, for example if the loss originates from your home but also affects neighboring homes.
A rental risk guarantee, which covers your home against different types of risks. It is supplemented here by insurance covering the personal property of the insured (furniture, personal effects, etc.).
The three main guarantees that can be included, sometimes as an option, in comprehensive home insurance, are as follows:

The fire-explosion guarantee, which also includes the fall of lightning or the damage caused by extinguishing a fire
The theft guarantee, which covers the disappearance, destruction or deterioration of movable property resulting from theft
Water damage guarantee
Other additional guarantees can be taken out: vandalism, glass breakage, but also school insurance (which covers your children at school for damage of which they are victims or responsible), or new reimbursement of movable property.
Owner or tenant?
If you own and occupy your home, insurance against water damage (and other rental risks) is optional. It is nevertheless strongly recommended, in view of the amounts potentially involved in the event of a claim!

If you are a tenant, it is compulsory, and at your expense. The insurer will then indemnify your landlord in the event of a claim, and cover your personal property as well as your civil liability.

In addition, the owner can take out additional "non-occupying owner" insurance to protect the rented accommodation and strengthen guarantees, in particular by covering other types of risks.

In the event of a claim, several scenarios are possible:

For water damage caused to a third party for which you are responsible, your liability insurance - included in your home insurance contract - will cover the damage.
Otherwise (a loss caused in your home by a third party), the third party liability insurance will cover the compensation.
If the damage started in the common areas, it will be the insurance of the owner of the building or the condominium that will be mobilized.
 
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Claims covered by the water damage guarantee
The water damage guarantee covers damage related to the action of water. Water damage should not be confused with flooding, which occurs in the event of a natural disaster or storm.

In any case, you must always read your contract carefully before taking it out, in order to know precisely the losses that will be covered.
What water damage is covered by your contract?
Concretely, water damage can take different forms: it can be a leak, a rupture or even an infiltration. But claims can also be more directly linked to the negligence of the insured, in the event of overflow, overturning or even congestion (obstruction of a duct): good news, they are also covered by insurance contracts. ! Frost can also be the cause of the disaster.

The installations concerned are as follows:

Non-buried water pipes (taps and hot or cold water supply pipes), as well as rainwater drainage pipes (such as gutters or gutters) or gray water;