Insurance - backed up sewage in basement - HELP!?

Question

Basement backed up and damaged my stuff in the basement. My renters insurance dosnt cover it. Will my landlords house insurance? Is it his responsibility or did I just loose out on a couple of grand worth of stuff?

Also if anyone has a website on clean up procedures that would help as well.

Answer 1

landlord is responsible. negotiate before you call your lawyer... he will not want to go to court over it.

Answer 2

"Backup of sewers and drains"

is an endorsement on a Homeowners policy that has to be added...

Hopefully your landlord has it - you obviously did not have it...

BUT even if the landlord has it - it will cover the damage to the house - not your personal items

Answer 3

Your landlord should have a policy on the structure, and this could include water backup coverage.  Your renters insurance policy may also include water backup damage.  As far as cleaning up the water damage... I would contact Servpro.

Answer 4

Doesn't matter.   Your landlord's policy has an exclusion in it for stuff that isn't his.  

It's not his fault it backed up - it's probably heavy rains or some such.

Go add 'backup of sewers and drains' to your policy so it doesn't happen again.

Answer 5

The landlords insurance MAY pay if he is proven liable.  With a sewer backup that would be hard to prove unless he was aware there was a problem in the sewer line & he did nothing to fix it.  Really the only way I know of to prove this is if it happened before, recently.  Usually a sewer backup is the very first indication of a problem.  

My parents had a backup & when the town came to fix it (it was out in the road), someone had thrown paper towels down the toilet but there was no way to know who did it because it was only in the main line.

Anyway, your landlord should be calling in a cleaning service (there are ones that specialize in water mitigation & know how to deal with sewer water).  He would be responsible to clean up the basement itself & you would be responsible to clean up (or dispose of) your personal property.  This should be done professionally because of the bacteria involved.  A professional will also be able to tell you what can be salvaged.  There are services in the yellow pages.  Offhand, I can think of one named Servpro, they are a big company in several states.  We have a couple of others but I believe they are regional, so may not be in your area