Plumbing Leak and Your Insurance Claim: What to Do the Day You Find It

Finding water where it shouldn't be is stressful, and it's even worse when you know the repair is going to involve your insurance company. People freeze up, or they rush and clean everything before anyone has seen it. A little order in the first hour helps a lot. Here's what we tell homeowners and property managers in Kenner, Metairie, New Orleans, Houma and Thibodaux to do the day they find a leak.

Step one: stop the water

Before anything else, shut off the water. Find your main shutoff valve and turn it off. Every household should know where that valve is before there's a problem, so take a minute now to find yours even if you're reading this calmly. If you can't find it, or it won't turn, call us and we'll talk you through what to do next.

Be careful around outlets, power strips and appliances sitting in or near water. If it's safe to reach the breaker panel, shut off power to the wet area. If standing water is near anything electrical and you aren't sure, stay out and call for help. A wet floor can wait. You can't undo an injury.

Step two: document before you clean

Take photos and video before anything gets moved, mopped or thrown out. Get wide shots of each affected room, then close-ups of the damage, the source of the leak if you can see it, and anything that got wet. Walk through slowly and narrate if that helps. Write down the date and time you found it and what you noticed first. Details like which room you smelled it in, or when the water bill showed up, are easy to forget a week later and they help whoever looks at the problem figure out where it started.

• Photos and video of every wet or damaged area
• The date and time you discovered the problem
• Any broken pipe, fitting or fixture, which you should keep rather than toss
• A short list of damaged belongings
• Your water bill, if it looked unusually high

Keep it all in one place, on your phone or in a folder, where you can find it later.

Step three: call a plumber who knows this work

You need the leak stopped and the cause found. That's a plumber's job, and it's worth calling someone who does this regularly. Insurance claims are our specialty at Peterson Plumbing & Sand Pumping. We track down the source with leak detection equipment, and when the problem is in a drain or sewer line, a video line inspection shows what's happening inside the pipe. Being able to point at what was found, with pictures to back it up, makes a conversation with your adjuster easier.

We handle underslab leaks, sewer lines, septic problems and commercial properties, and we take emergency calls around the clock. Our office is open Monday through Friday from 7 am to 5 pm, but a pipe doesn't care what day it is, so emergency service runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Step four: talk to your insurer

Call your insurance company or agent and ask what they need from you and how they want to handle the claim. That part is between you and them. We're plumbers, not your insurer, so we won't tell you what your policy covers or what they'll pay, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Your policy and your carrier decide that.

What we can do is give you clear information about what's wrong with the plumbing, so you have it when you make that call. If your insurer asks for a plumber's findings, tell us and we'll talk it through with you.

Claim job or small job, same urgency

One of our customers put it better than we could in a review. Insurance related work or small out of pocket jobs get the same level of urgency from us. A claim doesn't jump the line, and a small repair doesn't go to the back of it. A burst line behind a wall and a hose that let go on a water heater on a Saturday both get the same attention. The urgency doesn't depend on who ends up paying the bill, and neither does the care we put into the repair.

Mark Peterson, our Louisiana Master Plumber, is on every job. We've been family and locally owned since 1979, and estimates are free and same-day. You can read about the kinds of problems we fix on our underslab plumbing repairs page. If you've got water where it shouldn't be right now, shut the valve and call (504) 461-5193.