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By Sara Anglin - State Farm Insurance Agent
The Coverage You Think Your Homeowners Policy Includes But Doesn't Water backs up through the basement drain after a hard summer storm, and the first th...
Water backs up through the basement drain after a hard summer storm, and the first thing most people do is check their policy, expecting the cleanup to be covered because "it's water damage, and I have coverage for that." Then they read the fine print. Water that backs up through a sewer or drain is a different animal than a burst pipe, and standard homeowners policies often treat it as its own thing entirely, one you have to add on.
That gap between what feels covered and what's actually written into the policy is where a lot of surprise comes from. Not because anyone did anything wrong. The assumptions are reasonable. The policy just draws lines in places most people never think to look.
Here are the ones we field questions about most often around Nashville, and where the lines usually fall.
This is the big one, and it catches people every year. Homeowners insurance covers water that comes from the top down, a roof leak, a pipe letting go, hail punching through. It does not cover water that rises from the bottom up. Rising creek water, flash flooding, a swollen river, that is flood, and flood is a separate policy.
If you're near Mill Creek, the Cumberland, or in low-lying pockets of Bellevue and Antioch, this matters a lot more than a map might suggest. Nashville has watched water reach places nobody expected, and being outside a designated flood zone doesn't mean the risk is zero. It means the risk is lower, and flood insurance there is usually cheaper. You can look up your property's flood risk through before you assume you're clear.
Flood coverage runs on its own policy with its own waiting period, typically thirty days before it takes effect. So it isn't something you buy the week clouds start building. It's a spring or early-summer decision, made when nothing's happening.
Back to that basement drain. When water pushes backward through your plumbing, usually after heavy rain overwhelms the municipal system, standard homeowners coverage generally leaves that out. The fix is a rider, often called water backup or sump pump overflow coverage. It's inexpensive, frequently a small annual amount, and it covers the part that gets expensive fast: pulling out ruined flooring, drywall, and anything stored in a finished basement.
If your home has a finished lower level or a sump pump, this is one worth asking about specifically. It's easy to add and easy to overlook.
This is where a lot of Nashville folks get surprised, because so many people run something out of the house now. A photographer with lenses in the spare room. Someone selling on Etsy with a garage full of inventory. A consultant with equipment in a home office.
Homeowners policies cap business property kept at home, and the cap is usually low, often around a couple thousand dollars. If your gear or stock is worth more than that, or if a client ever visits your home for that business, you've moved past what a homeowners policy is built to handle. That's a business insurance conversation, and it's a big part of what we do here. A home-based business isn't automatically a business the policy sees. Naming it, sizing it, and getting the right coverage in place is the difference between "handled" and "hoping."
We'd rather walk through it with you before anything happens than sort out a denied claim after. If you're earning income from home in any real way, that's the trigger to have the talk.
Your policy covers your belongings, but some categories carry their own internal caps regardless of your overall coverage amount. Jewelry, watches, firearms, fine art, collectibles. If an engagement ring, a guitar collection (this is Nashville, after all), or a piece of art is worth real money, the policy may only pay a fraction of its value under the standard limit.
The fix is scheduling those items, listing them individually, sometimes with an appraisal. It raises your premium a little and closes the gap entirely. Musicians especially should ask about this, because instruments used professionally can slip into the business-property question too.
Homeowners insurance is built for the sudden and the accidental. A tree comes down in a storm, a pipe bursts, a fire starts. What it doesn't cover is the gradual, the expected, the maintenance side of owning a home. A roof that's simply reached the end of its life. A slow leak that went unseen behind a wall for months. Foundation settling over years.
This isn't a loophole, it's the whole design. Insurance handles the event you couldn't have planned for, not the upkeep that comes with any house. Knowing that line helps you set aside for the maintenance and lean on the policy for the surprises.
Earthquakes and land movement, sinkholes, mudflow, are generally excluded from standard homeowners coverage. Tennessee sits near enough to the New Madrid seismic zone that earthquake coverage is worth at least a question, even if the odds feel remote. Like flood, it's a separate add-on, and like flood, it's cheapest to consider when nothing's making you think about it.
None of this means you need every rider on the list. It means the policy you have was built around a set of assumptions, and your life may have drifted from them, a home business here, a finished basement there, a ring that's worth more than it was on the wedding day.
The useful move is a quick review of what you actually own and how you actually use your home, then matching the coverage to that. That's the conversation we have with people all the time, and it usually takes a lot less time than folks expect. Bring your questions. We'll tell you straight where your policy already has you covered and where a small addition would close a gap worth closing.