Septic backup

[backedup]

Hello,
Our insurance co will not cover flooding but will cover Septic Backup. Where I live we had 10 inches of rain in two days. Behind my house is the septic tank (very close to the house-its old), the leach bed is maybe 50? feet further back. Behind all of this is a corn field. All of this slopes down from the corn field, thru our yard, out to the ditch in the front yard. Generally in hard rains the water comes out of the cornfield, AROUND ourhouse, between ours and the neighbors driveway and to the ditch. This time it didnt. The yard off to the side was flooded as usual but waht was different was around the septic lids, it was seeping UP out of the cement covers. This in turn flooded the back porch and went under the house and thru the crawlspace into the main basement where the furnace/hot water heater/washer/dryer were. We had flooded years ago so we had two sump pumps, unbeknownst to us, one of them failed, the remaining pump couldnt keep up. This was DEFINITELY septic water, it STUNK! (where the flood water going around the house only smelled "muddy") My guess (which I know nothing about septic systems), is that the water rushing out of the field, flooded the leach bed, which backed up thru the septic, out the lids, flooded the back porch and went under the house. A) will this be considered a FLOOD or SEPTIC BACK UP and B)does my assumption of what happened sound correct to you? Any other given day the septic system does NOT back up and works just fine without issue.
We lost the furnace, the hot water heater and both washer/dryer and must have insurance to cover it or we are without furnace/AC and washer and dryer the rest of the summer (due to money issues) and hot water until we can get the money to have a hot water heater put in.

HELP?

 

[Accelerated]

Was the sewage borne by ground/flood waters?

 

[backedup]

HI

I would have to say yes I guess, if it wouldnt have rained so hard and if the ground wasnt so saturated it wouldnt have filled the septic tanks up, causing them to flood the back porch along the house and in turn go into the basement. So if it wouldnt have rained so much, the septic would NOT have backed up

 

[Accelerated]

If it was borne by surface water, rather than having actually backed up into the dwelling (via a pipe), it is likely going to raise red flags. Surface water flowing into your home would be considered flooding, regardless of what the surface water happened to carry with it.

That said, it would certainly not hurt to file a claim and see what they have to say about it. I saw countless "sewer backup" claims during Katrina, and more recently, Irene, Isaac & Sandy, and I do know that some of them were paid out even when it was blatantly obvious that they should not have been, even when adjusters spelled out that the loss was specifically excluded per the policy language.

 

[djs]

File the claim. Without knowing more it is impossible to predict the outcome of this type of claim.

Be careful of calling it 'flooding'. The National Flood Insurance Program calls if flooding if 2 or more acres are involved. You may have hit this criteria, but if it comes up, I would try to argue it was only your house that 'flooded', therefore, it is not flooding.

The idea is that flood insurance won't cover this if its less than 2 acres, therefore, if you have an all perils policy, it should be covered since the NFP says its not flooding.

Its a longshot, but its worth a shot.

Dan