Is Pest Damage at My Home Covered by Insurance?

Homeowners rely on home insurance to cover all forms of damage to their property – fooding after a burst pipe, an accidental fire, or the theft of belongings. Pests are another common form of damage to homes. Termites and carpenter ants can eat through wood, causing structural weaknesses. Rodents, bats, birds, and other wildlife chew through wires and insulation and leave messy droppings behind.

Yet the majority of home insurance policies do not include coverage for damage done by pests leaving extermination and repairs as the responsibility of the homeowner. Reading carefully through your insurance policy will let you know whether or not you can expect to have pest damage covered, and which types. For all other homeowners, you will want to learn more about why damage is not covered and what you can do on your own to prevent it.

Top Reasons Insurance Companies Do Not Cover Pest Damage

interpreting what insurance covers and what it does not is a complicated task, even for those experienced with it. As you start looking deeper into your policy, you might begin to see that some aspects of pest damage are covered, such as a collapsed roof after termites weaken a support beam, but other parts are not, such as getting rid of the termites and repairing the beam.

Insurers most often put the burden of payment for pest damage on the homeowner for one or more of the following reasons:

  • Maintenance Issue – Insurance companies will often claim that with the correct steps, pest infestations could have been prevented. Theoretically, if you had performed exclusion, habitat management, or had regular inspections from a pest control company, you would not have a pest problem.
  • Not Sudden and Accidental – Most insurance policies have a sudden and accidental clause in them that specifies covered damage has to be unsuspected. Pest damage often starts small with just a few bugs and increases over time. The insurance company puts the responsibility of detecting pest infestations early before damage can become extreme on the homeowner.
  • Exclusion Clauses – Many insurers specifically exclude pests in their policies. Termites have long been one of these pests. But lately companies are also adding birds, rodents, bats, and other pests to their list of exclusions.

Instead of turning to your insurance company when you find pests on your property, the better choice is to contact a professional pest control company in Rocklin. At ADAPT Pest Management, we can quickly and affordably exterminate pests and wildlife from your home.

We also have the preventative tools to keep pests from becoming a problem in the first place. Like insurance companies, we believe that many pest issues can be prevented with the right methods. We use an ongoing bi-monthly or quarterly preventative pest control program. With each visit to your home, we apply treatments around all the areas that pests may use to get inside.

We offer rodent exclusion to physically keep mice and rats out in the long term and termite control services to help identify termite infestations early on and intervene before the damage becomes extensive. If you need help preventing or dealing with a pest issue on your property, give ADAPT a call today.

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