Water Line Insurance?

Yes please. The brochure from the National Water Company arrived in the mail last week. Enclosed in an envelope from my insurance company (Bell-Anderson), it got past my first line of junk mail defense (toss all clearly unsolicited offers). The brochure described an offer I couldn’t refuse.

For $3.99 a month, my water line is now covered in the event of failure. There is no deductible. The age of the water line doesn’t matter, and there is no inspection required to enroll. All homes in the program pay the same amount. Here’s the way the brochure describes the coverage:

You will be covered for up to $5000 for each service call, $5000 aggregate (Maximum) per year. This includes the cost of repairs or replacement of a broken or leaking water service line between the meter or property line and the home. In addition, your coverage includes all service call charges, materials and labor for the covered work.

The National Water Company, Moses Lake, Washington, is administering the program on behalf of Lyndon Southern Insurance Company.

If my water line starts leaking, I can call a customer service hotline to get a contractor sent out to my home. I don’t pay anything unless the repairs exceed $5000 in a year. Even if they do, which is unlikely unless the line needs to be replaced, I still save $5000.

In the 30+ years I have lived on Rocky Point, my water lines have leaked four times—three times at my old house and once at my present house. Each time it was up to me to find the leaks and fix them. One leak was so bad that I applied for an adjustment on the resulting sky-high water bill after the repair was made.

I have no special skill in finding water leaks. I know generally where the water line is and have a great neighbor who can fix anything once a leak is found. I have managed to locate every leak so far (all were at unions in the line) but only after a lot of digging and a lot of luck. My leaks haven’t cost me a lot of money, but they have cost me a lot of time.

For my last leak in 2008, I called Northwest Leak Detectors for help. A man came out with special listening equipment and walked the entire line. Even though the counter on the water meter was spinning madly with no water being used at the house, he wasn’t able to locate the leak. Underground it wasn’t making enough noise.

My present water line runs for more than 650 feet from the connection at the Bremerton city water main on Rocky Point Road to my house. Most of it is under the asphalt driveway (see photo) at a depth of two to three feet. In one place it leaves the driveway and runs down a steep slope before being covered by asphalt again. It is more than 35 years old. As a homeowner I am responsible for the line once it leaves the meter.

I wouldn’t write a “one price fits all” policy like NWC is offering. It’s like charging an overweight middle-aged smoker with high cholesterol and a twenty-something vegan who runs marathons the same amount for health insurance. But what do I know?

Bremerton city water bills arrive in the mail every two months. I dread getting them. Because I use roughly the same amount of water year round, I can instantly tell from the usage figure if there is a leak. Each “normal” water bill is cause for celebration.

I hope I never need to use the water line insurance. But if I get an abnormal water bill in the future, at least I won’t be facing the problem alone.