She had 'enhanced' flood coverage, but her insurer still denied her claim
An Ottawa homeowner was denied insurance coverage for basement flooding despite paying for an enhanced water damage package. The insurer clarified that the policy excludes groundwater flooding, highlighting a common gap in standard home insurance coverage.
Why it matters
It underscores the critical need for homeowners to understand specific policy exclusions regarding water damage, especially as extreme weather events become more frequent.
She ran to grab towels and returned to find "water coming from everywhere."
"I thought I was going to have a heart attack," Cooper recalled.
She joins more than 5,000 Ottawa homeowners whose basements flooded when at least 118 millimetres of rain deluged parts of Ottawa on July 1.
Cooper, 71, says the bungalow has been in her family for more than 50 years and had never suffered flooding before the intense Canada Day storm.
Now, she says dealing with insurance has compounded the stress of cleaning up the flood damage.
"It took everything I had to purchase [this house], so I wanted to make sure that nothing or nobody was ever able to take it from me," Cooper said. "So I always had the maximum insurance that was available."
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