Only if you bought the add-on. A standard Ontario home policy does not cover water that comes up through the floor drain or in through the walls during a storm; it covers water that comes down through a roof leak. Whether Wednesday’s flood is paid for depends on two optional endorsements that a lot of GTA homeowners have never been asked about.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada spelled it out after the Niagara flooding last month: water damage in a basement from sewer backup “is only covered if you have purchased specific, optional sewer backup coverage,” and overland flood coverage is a second optional add-on that is widely available in Ontario but usually carries limits and may not be offered at all if the house sits in a known flood plain. Roof leaks are the one water loss a base policy typically handles on its own.
The two add-ons cover different water. McDougall Insurance’s Ontario guide draws the line this way: sewer backup is water arriving through floor drains, toilets or basement fixtures because the municipal system was overwhelmed; overland water is rain or snowmelt entering from outside at or above ground level. Slow seepage through the foundation and groundwater are excluded from both unless you carry a further endorsement, and chronic drainage problems are never covered. The same guide puts sewer backup at roughly $20 to $250 a year and overland water at about $10 to $30 a month in moderate-risk areas, more in higher-risk zones.
So the first thing to do today is not to clean, it is to find your policy declarations page and look for the words sewer backup and overland water, then call the broker and open the claim regardless. IBC’s advice for anyone hit: photograph everything before it moves, keep receipts for every bag, fan and contractor, keep notes of every call, and if you cannot live in the house, keep the receipts for where you are staying, because additional living expenses are part of an insured claim. IBC runs a consumer line at 1-844-227-5422.
If the answer is no coverage, the repair is out of pocket, and a claim against the City is not the fallback people think it is. The order of operations, the 48-hour drying window and the City subsidy for a backwater valve and sump pump are in the crew’s storm thread: My basement flooded in the Toronto storm, what do I do first?
What we would do once the water is out, whichever way the claim goes: install the backwater valve under the City program, then call the broker back. McDougall notes insurers often discount the premium for a backwater valve or a sump pump with battery backup, and some will not write sewer backup on a house that has flooded before without one.
If your insurer has already answered, post what they said and what the deductible was. It is the fastest way for the next person on your street to know what to expect.
Did your policy have sewer backup, overland water, both or neither, and did the adjuster ask whether you have a backwater valve?
