Posted by roofcoadmin December 15, 2018
Your insurance provider typically isn’t under obligation to cover ice dam extraction expenses for you. You will find out about it if you speak to your insurance company and/or read their “What We Cover” part of the insurance policy.
However, the great news is insurance providers occasionally will cover all or part of the dam removal, typically as an action of “good faith.”
Figuring out your coverage sometimes can feel as if you are attempting to discover Coke’s recipe: All it’s possible to do is guess. No two providers are precisely the same in their decision-making and policies. No two dams are exactly the same: a few of them produce massive destruction to your house, whereby other ones pose very little threat.
Thereby, it is pretty much impossible to figure out if or for how much you will be covered.
Even though you cannot predict coverage, it’s possible to maximize your opportunities of having at least a part of the ice dam removal expenses covered – if you understand how companies view and deal with dam claims.
Why aren’t dam removal expenses usually taken care of by insurance?
Ice dams aren’t considered a “covered peril” on the majority of traditional policies.
They’re like mighty oak trees that hang over your property’s roof. If a tree falls on the roof, your provider will probably pay for any house repairs. The insurance provider might also pay to remove the part of the tree which fell upon your home.
But they aren’t going to arrive and remove that tree just as a preventative step. Why not? Because there is a good opportunity that the tree won’t fall, and even if it falls it might not do so on your property. It’d be a slippery slope for your insurance provider: they cannot pay for the extraction of all of the trees homeowners feel are a bit too close to their house. Insurance providers aren’t in the “tree trimming” business just like they aren’t within the “ice dam removal” business. A specific duty falls on a homeowner to do their part in protecting their house. You have a duty as a homeowner to maintain and protect your house.
It is exactly the same with an ice dam. Your insurance company will probably cover the destruction that is done to your house caused by the leaking roof, and they might also pay to extract the part of the dam that is directly causing that leaking. However, usually the ice dam removal itself is thought to be the homeowner’s job. Every once and a while a provider might even remove the whole dam (and occasionally the snow) from the roof. (It’s like them paying for the destruction to your house caused by a fallen tree, paying for the extraction of the whole tree from your home, and paying for all the tree stump and debris to be removed.)
For more information on our reliable ice dam removal company please feel free to get in touch with Roofco right away!