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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Murray Group Mailbag. My name is Ryan Hanley.
I'm the director of marketing and sales here at the Murray Group. And the Murray Group
Group Mail Bag is very simple feature. Basically, we get questions submitted to us all day through
our website, through our Facebook page and through email about insurance related matters
and we know that if one person has a question for sure many more people do as well and we
wanna make that information easily available and completely free, so we post these videos
on youtube and on our web site to make sure that if you have a question, it gets answered.
Today's question comes from Stephanie [sp?], who likes in Glenmont, NY, and she asks, What
is the difference between flood insurance and water back up coverage. OK. Very common
question, especially in the fall and in the spring in our particular area which is the
general Albany area, but really anywhere in upstate New York during the fall and spring.
Flooding happens, water accumulates in places that it normally doesn't And can impact our
homes,. So flood insurance is actually a policy run through the federal government and in
order for a flood policy to respond. There has to be two properties impacted, or more
than two acres impacted, and the national government, the Federal government actually
has to declare the area, you know a flood in order for the flood policy to respond.
So you could have flood insurance have water damage based on something that you would consider
a flood, and if the federal government doesn't deem that it meets the criteria of a flood,
that policy will not not respond. But when thinking about what a flood is, and how flood
impacts your home. Think water, over your foundation down into your house.
not the best way, not a completely accurate way to describe it but kind of gives you a
visualization, flood has to impact a large area like I said more then two acres or more
then two properties and it has to, you know, normally comes over the foundation and down
into the house. Water back up coverage is actually an endorsement to your home owner's
policy.
So where flood insurance is a completely separate policy from your homeowners insurance. Flood
is not covered, repeat, not covered on your homeowners policy. Water back up is actually
an endorsement to your homeowner's insurance policy. Very inexpensive. You know, you can
get water backup coverage for no 30, 40 bucks at it's lowest level, and then obviously you
can add more with most carriers, but water backup coverage provides reimbursement in
the event that water backs up through sewers, pipes drains, sump pump.
So, sump pump failure is part of water backup coverage. So really when you think about a
claim that would involve water backup, think about water coming back up into your home.
So you leave for vacation, your sump pump fails while you're away, and there's two inches
of water in your basement when you come home.
The clean up, any damage property down there, that's all going to be covered under water
back up. Now, water back up coverage, as an endorsement, often has a reduced limit so
it's not like if you have $100,000 worth of contents coverage, on your water backup or
on your homeowner's policy if you have the water backup endorsement, you're going to
get a $100,000 worth of reimbursement.
You wanna make sure that you know and are comfortable with the limit of water backup
coverage. But these are two very separate things. Water backup endorsement to the homeowner's
policy, flood insurance completely separate policy but you wanna make sure that if you
feel like you could be impacted by a flood or water-related issues that you're speaking
to your insurance agent about this very important and your insurance agent will help you determine
which policy and which endorsements are right for you.
So again, this has been the Murray Group Mailbag you have your own question that you would
like to be featured here, you can leave it in the comments below this video, or you can
search us out on Facebook The Murray Group search that in Facebook, and you'll find us.
Or you can send us a direct email insurance@MurrayGRP.com, that's insurance @murraygrp.com, and we'll
make sure that we get your question featured on a future episode of the Murray Group Mailbag.
Thank you.