Burst pipes and water leaks
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Protect your plumbing system with home emergency cover
Plumbing and drainage insurance, also known as home emergency cover, is an optional extra that you can add to your home insurance policy.
It helps you quickly get help for sudden plumbing issues at home - like a burst pipe or a blocked drain.
By calling the home emergency cover helpline, you can get immediate advice and your insurer can quickly arrange for a registered tradesperson to come and fix the problem.
You’ll be covered for the cost of any repairs and parts needed, usually up to a set maximum limit.
If you’re a homeowner, plumbing and drainage cover can give you extra peace of mind if you find yourself with a problem that needs fixing quickly.
With standard home insurance, your buildings insurance can cover the cost of water damage to the structure of your home. And your contents insurance could pay out if your belongings are damaged by an unexpected leak.
But unless your policy includes plumbing and drainage cover or you buy it as a policy add-on, it’ll be your responsibility to organise and pay for a qualified professional to fix the problem.
So if you want to be protected against unexpected repair bills and have problems dealt with fast, adding home emergency cover to your policy is worth considering.
Typically, this insurance will cover the cost of emergency call-out fees, labour and replacement parts for urgent plumbing and drainage repairs that can include:
Insurers may offer different levels of home emergency cover that can also include an annual boiler service and urgent repairs to your home’s electrical system.
Some offer unlimited cover whereas others cap the amount they’ll pay out or will limit the number of emergency call-outs you can make per policy term - so it’s best to compare policies.
Plumbing and drainage cover can come into its own if you’ve got an urgent plumbing issue on your hands, but not every situation is covered so always check the policy exclusions.
Things that typically won’t be covered include:
To compare plumbing and drainage insurance, you’ll need to get a quote for home emergency cover.
It’s easy to get a quote, simply:
We’ll need information like your name, address and type of home
We’ll ask you about the make, age and condition of your boiler
You’ll need to add central heating cover, and then add plumbing and home electrics
We can find you quotes for up to 30 days in advance
This is one of the most common causes of water damage to homes. To help prevent this from happening, protect your pipes. Make sure pipes and water tanks are insulated and heating is kept on low when you’re away for long periods in the winter.
Having a blocked drain can be a real pain. What you do and don’t put down your sink can make a real difference. Avoid putting any oils or grease down them that can go hard and form fat blocks which clog up the pipes and block drains.
No one wants to have this issue, especially if you have a family at home and only one loo. To minimise the chance of this happening be careful what you flush down the toilet, many ‘flushable’ wipes can actually block toilets.
Using pipes to hang bags, clothes, or even plants off can end up causing big problems. Putting any additional weight on pipes can cause them to warp or crack and leak.
This can cause a pipe to collapse or even block them entirely. Often tree root intrusion will be covered by your home insurance but policies vary. To avoid any damage, check your drains regularly and keep an eye on nearby trees and shrubs.
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Page last reviewed: 18/05/2023
Page reviewed by Jasmine Hembury
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