There are specific types of things that a homeowners insurance policy will cover. Problems arise when a person files a claim for damages that come from unlikely, or unusual, sources. A couple in Texas learned that their homeowners insurance won’t cover damages done by dead birds.
A homeowners insurance policy is designed to give you some financial protection in case certain types of damages happen to your home, garage, driveway, or the contents of your home. It also can provide some financial assistance if someone comes to your home and gets injured. (That part would be covered if your policy includes “Liability”).
Problems happen when a homeowner files a claim for damages caused by something unusual. This is when insurers tend to refuse to cover the claim. A couple in El Paso, Texas, says that their insurance company has refused to cover the damages that were caused to their home by hundreds of dead birds.
The family noticed that their heater had stopped working. They suspected that the cause was a gas leak. The father of the family went into the attic of the home. I presume that he went up there in the hopes that he would find the reason why the heater wouldn’t work.
What he discovered were the carcases of hundreds of dead birds. An exterminator was called. The exterminator said that there were three possible entry points that could have been how the birds got into the attic. They couldn’t find their way back out.
The exterminator said that in addition to the actual carcasses, there were more potential health hazards from the mites, ticks, and fleas that may have been on the birds, and from the feces the birds left behind before they died. These contagions could have been spread through the heating ducts into the rest of the house.
The couple filed a claim for the cost of the clean-up to their homeowners policy. The insurer has refused to cover those costs. At the time I am writing this blog, the insurer has not released an official reason as to why it will not cover the cost of the damage.
It also appears that the homeowners are uncertain as to how long, exactly, the birds had been in the attic. The couple says that the home had been vacant for a year before they purchased it. I’m not sure how a home inspector would have missed all those bird carcasses.
Image by ToddonFlickr on Flickr