A family in Idaho bought a house for an unexpectedly low price. They soon discovered the reason behind the discounted price. The home was infested with snakes! It made me wonder if there was any kind of insurance that could have helped this unfortunate family.
Ben and Amber Sessions (and their two young children), bought what they thought was their dream home. It had five bedrooms, was in the rural countryside, and was a price they could afford. They ended up paying just $180,000 for the home. Amber was pregnant with the couple’s third child at the time, and it sounds like the home would be big enough for their growing family.
Soon, they discovered that the price was so low because the house was infested with thousands of garter snakes. The house was built on a hibernaculum, which is a large den where snakes gather together in order to hibernate for the winter. When the weather starts getting cold, the snakes return to this large den. When the seasons change, and become warmer, the snakes come out.
The snake infestation caused damage to the home, as well as to this family’s quality of life. They couldn’t use their water because the snakes were releasing foul smelling musk that they use as a warning to predators. Snakes crawled beneath the siding on the outside of the home, and inside of the walls as well. Ben was doing “sweeps” every morning to remove snakes from inside the house before his pregnant wife and young sons could get out of bed.
Understandably, this was more than the family could deal with. They filed for bankruptcy and ended up moving out of the home three months after moving in, (and right after their daughter was born). Ben has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome due to this experience.
When I read this story, it made me wonder if there might have been any kind of insurance that could have helped this family. My first thought was thats maybe a homeowners policy would have been useful. Unfortunately, homeowners insurance doesn’t actually cover damages caused by infestations.
Most homeowners insurance policies will specifically exclude coverage for damages caused by termites, bedbugs, or rats. I believe this means that homeowners insurance will not cover damages caused by thousands of garter snakes, either.
There is another potential problem when it comes to insurance coverage. When the Sessions family bought the “snake house”, they signed a paper that said that they were aware of the snake infestation.
The agent they bought the house from convinced them that the infestation was a story that was made up by the previous homeowner, and that there were no snakes. Clearly, the agent lied to them. However, I wonder if by signing that paper the family essentially negated the potential to have damages covered by insurance.
Assuming this family had health insurance, would that cover treatment for PSTD? It depends. Not all health insurance policies will cover the treatment of mental health issues. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would definitely fall into the category of mental health.
Image by Brian Gratwicke on Flickr