As per usual in the world of insurance policies, there are always little loopholes and other nooks and crannies where discrepancies can be made. There is a myriad of ways your home could be compromised or damaged and a whole separate myriad of ways your home insurance policy could have fine print that states that they won’t cover the issue you’re having.
One of these areas that may trip some home owner’s up is in the realm of damage done by the construction of the home or defects in how the hold was built. This area gets tricky because home insurance is meant to cover the odds and ends of random damage that could not be better explained as negligence on the part of the homeowner. These are the accidents and the damages such as wind damage, fallen trees on the home, hail damage, etc.
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The above damages are covered despite homeowners’ lack of ability to prevent them and in the case of construction defects, you would assume the same could be said. Nonetheless, construction defects are not covered by homeowners insurance.
Understanding Why Construction Defects Aren’t Covered
When you first hear “construction defects”, you are most likely thinking about the actual construction of the home itself and possibly not thinking about the ways in which any contractor may cause damage. Although it is not the first thought that comes to mind, it is important to understand where you should be protected by your established home insurance plan and where you aren’t covered.
If a contractor comes to your home to repair siding damage and they do a poor job, this bad construction work will not be covered by your homeowners insurance policy due to language within the majority of policies that excludes the insurer being able to cover poor workmanship. This is viewed almost as though the owner of the home was negligent because the contractor was someone hired by the homeowners to perform the repairs and since this contractor did poor work under the direction of the homeowners, it is not the responsibility of the insurer to cover the cost of re-doing this work.
Another situation in which contractor mistakes may or may not covered by insurance is when, during the course of making repairs, damages the home in some way that is accidental in nature. For example, if you hire a plumber to fix a leak in your shower and they accidentally cause a pipe to be compromised and the flood the bathroom, your insurance might cover this at is it something very sudden and not something done with intentions behind it.
The last tricky part about home insurance policies and contracting issues is that of being covered for damage caused by poor construction work. While construction defects are not usually covered, the damages done by the defects may be covered by your insurer. In these situations, it is important to have an understanding of your policy to make sure that while there may be some relief for these damages, you may be left to put up the cost of fixing the original issue that the contractor was hired to complete.
