Your insurance won't likely cover a slow leak that's been around for awhile. Insurance companies look at that as neglect on your part. If it is paid, you'll like get a diminished settlement.

And remember that if you even call your agent about it, it can adversly affect your insurance policy. People on the 'net have been discussing how some insurance companies now use insurance scores to determine potential risk. This uses your credit score and the past history of making claims on your homeowners insurance - or previous owners of your home's past homeowner's insurance claims - to set your insurance rates. Every time you use your insurance, you risk having your rates go up or your policy cancelled.

So always read your policy before calling your agent to find out if you are covered for a claim. Plan to use your insurance only for catastrophic claims and increase your deductible to at least $1000. Make it $5000 if you can afford to. Using your insurance for small claims will drive up your costs, so save money by having a high deductible and then have a savings account to use to make repairs under $5000 -or to pay the deductible on large claims.

I had along-term leak in a roof that was fixed shortly after I moved into my last house. 10 years later, I had that part of the house remodeled and the ceiling was replaced. The contractor found that the roof rafters there were rotting. Two were rotted through - as was the header between this former porch arera and the kitchen. We were lucky that it had not collapsed. Since it was a long-term, slow leak, it was not covered by homeowners. The agent gave me this way to figure out if something is covered: If it happend slowly after time, it is a regular repair, no insurance involvement. If you can name a date in which an event happened (the August 12th windstorm), it may be covered.

Best of luck in repairing your home. I hope you have the opportunity to do some updates (even just extra insulation) while you are tearing things apart.

I had two sewer backups the first year I owned my home. Not a huge amount of water damage, but enough that I called my insurance company. Everything got cleaned up, but I probably could have done about as good a job myself, it just would have taken longer. Long story short, while they didn't cancel my policy they did cancel my water damage coverage for a period of 3 years. This was even after I sent them the plumber's bill for diagnosis and resolution of the problem, and after a year of no problems. They didn't care, they just cancelled. They were good enough to eventually reinstate the coverage, but it taught me not to file a claim unless it was
a major, major problem. Good luck to you!

Abbey

How did the water damage the granite counter???

Nycefarm - the issue is that the granite may not survive removal/reinstall to address damaged cabinetry & flooring.

I had a slow leak from a kinked DW hose. Noticed the HWF buckling in the adjacent DR. Wet and mold underneath. What a mess. I believe the kink happened when the flooring guys reset the DW during the kitchen and DR flooring job, though I cannot prove it. My agent said it would likely not be covered because coverage is for flood-type or emergency water events - think burst pipe. Not slow leak. And the agent was wary even about making an inquiry tied to my policy. Apparently even an inquiry can affect your rates. (She made an informal inquiry instead.)

Stinkers.

Be careful.

Once you have filed a claim for any kind of water intrusion issues, you insurance company will keep a record. When you sell the house, you will have to disclose it.