Neighborhood OSAGO: home insurance against flooding and automatics for emergency overlap of cranes
Twelve years ago I first moved to the metropolis, and two years later I moved from a student dormitory to a rental housing. Since then, the cities have changed, the number of rooms, the apartments themselves - only the habit of checking whether all the taps are turned off before leaving the house has not changed. I do not know why - I have never flooded the neighbors, and the neighbors have never flooded me yet - but I was never left with an alarm about flooding. It is especially dumb to keep a washing machine working when you leave home or just leave for a long time - so far nothing terrible has happened, but every time you think: “What if?”
When I forgot to block the riser
Each apartment has at least three water sources: a toilet, a faucet in the bathroom and a faucet in the kitchen. And this is also the Spartan minimum, calculated on the basis that the Soviet crane, turning from the sink to the bath and back, remained in the bathroom. In a modernly equipped housing there are much more sources of potential threat for me, for my neighbors and from my neighbors: separate taps in the bathroom, a system for connecting water to a washing machine, a faucet in the kitchen, a faucet for a water filter and water supply to the dishwasher. At the same time, it is impossible to guarantee the absolute reliability of all communications: the hoses and pipes that connect all this stuff have a tendency to wear out, not to mention banal leaks that will destroy not only the floors and furniture, but also leave messages on the ceiling of the neighbors.
Of course, the universal method of protecting equipment from failure is well known: prevention. And after all, apart from the annual inspection and inspection of all hoses and taps, you can also insure against emergency situations.
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The first time I heard about the possibility of insuring an apartment against leakage was about 5 years ago, when I first rented a whole separate apartment at my disposal. When I saw an ad in the elevator, I thought something like: “This is a really useful topic; I need to know more. " Since then, I have moved at least three times - and guess how many of them I bought insurance for housing or discussed it with the landlord? For the first time, I actually somehow approached this issue when I already sat down to write this article.
Unlike CTP, which earned when it became compulsory, home insurance is still voluntary. According to a number of estimates, only about 10% of the housing stock of Moscow is insured, in the regions this figure is even less. Many of those who have reached at least the second stage of interest in the issue of insurance are scared away by the policy of the insurers themselves: most insurance companies offer only comprehensive package insurance solutions “from everything”, including fires, flooding, burglaries and other incidents.
Insurance apartments can hardly be called humane in terms of price, and the size of the payment is unlikely to cover all costs. For example, Renaissance Insurance offers a full package of insurance for an apartment for 5,500 rubles / year with the amount of payments of 400,000 rubles maximum in case of theft or fire, and 300,000 rubles - in case of damage to property of neighbors (civil liability). That is, I can rely somewhere $ 5000 on compensation for damage to flooded neighbors (at the current rate), despite the fact that a simple repair, which was done by the apartment owners, which I rented, could easily cost 1 million rubles, and higher - times exceeding the size of the maximum insurance payment.
But even this is half the trouble. In order to receive payment on insurance, you still have to go through a lot of bureaucratic procedures for assessing damage, recognizing a case of insurance, and so on: insurance companies easily sell policies to the right and left - everything changes when it comes time to make payments.
As an example.
You left the city and did not block the water. At this time, you have a hose in the kitchen and while the concerned neighbors tried to reach you, then they called all possible phones to you and to the housing office, until a plumber came and blocked the entire riser, you flooded three neighbors down. Then the most unpleasant begins.
Neighbors may try to bill you with "peace" - not showing the destruction or "hanging" all their problems and problems on the flood. In order to resolve this issue legally, it is necessary to draw up an act of flooding (gulf) apartments. This act is an organization that operates and maintains your home. The document should contain a detailed description of the flood with possible causes (breakthrough of your hose). Also in the act must be a detailed inventory of things spoiled by the flood, which is called the defect list.
One of the pitfalls of collecting these documents is the time when they need to be collected. Neighbors may insist that your flood could cause mold or bloat. On the other hand, wet wallpapers can just dry on the walls and look just like before the flood (if you are very lucky). That is, you can not deal with this problem even for a week, since the laminate can rise later. But you have not even reached your insurance company and there is a huge pitfall here.
Most insurance companies require an inspection of the place of flooding no later than 5-7 days after the flood. At the same time, ideally, insurers should call immediately after the flood. In order to apply for the payment of insurance, you must provide documents that you are a homeowner, plus an act of inspection of the home. That is, you have a maximum week to reach employees of the housing office or another organization serving your house, go around the neighbors, compile all the documents and submit them correctly to the insurance company.
But there still is not all. When drawing up documents on civil liability insurance for housing, you must read the contract very carefully. The Rosgosstrakh website, for example, lists the following non-insurance cases:
Thus, you may be "slipped" insurance against the flooding of your neighbors in case you, for example, forgot to turn off the tap. Because a broken or rotten pipe is a physical deterioration of the structure, that is, a case of non-insured.
Because of all this paperwork and a non-zero chance that the case is recognized as non-insured or the payment does not cover the damage, our fellow citizens prefer to install security alarms with doors that are stronger and check the electrical wiring with fuses, and the issue of protecting water communications is left to chance.
No one wants to buy insurance in order to protect themselves exclusively from flooding the neighbors, but problems in the sewage system and communications arise with enviable regularity. Responsibility of a tenant for communication begins with a crane in the riser, although the housing office in the event of an accident may try to hang its blunders on you, but this is a separate topic. The tap itself and everything after it is your problem, not those on whose balance the house is.
As an alternative to insurance, regular diagnostics of all communications can be considered: checking gaskets, taps, hoses and weak points of their connections with cranes and equipment. However, far from all the tenants show such vigilance - people usually are not inclined to check in advance something before it breaks down, and not everyone has the skills necessary for a correct check.
As another solution, smart home systems come to mind, but they no longer control communications, but “output devices”: taps and devices, so that in the case of a broken hose under the sink, a standard “smart home” will not save you and your neighbors from the bottom. It can be argued that the flood is stopped by the overlap of the crane from the riser. You will be surprised how much time an average apartment is empty, while its residents spend time at work and school.
As an effective alternative to insurance, you can offer an autonomous system that would, without the participation of the owner, shut off the water in case of a breakthrough - as the Aquastorozh leakage protection system does.
Aquastorozh is a portable autonomous system for shutting off water in the event of a leak. It consists of three main elements: a control unit, a leakage sensor (wired or wireless) and a valve. In the case of sensor activation, it transmits a signal to the unit, which in turn activates an electric motor on the tap to shut off the water. Wired solutions are more difficult in terms of concealed installation (laying in the walls and floor) - so if you have already lived in your apartment and do not plan repairs in the near future, the wireless system will be more convenient.
Now we can say that this solution is only one of those offered on the market, however, Akvastorozh against the background of competitors has several advantages:
As well as in other similar systems, wire connection of cranes to the power supply, in this case - to the control panel is required. For this reason, the controller is most often installed near the riser. In the same place, immediately after the riser and in front of the meters and other devices, an Akvastorozh crane is installed.
Another advantage of “Aquastorozha” is duplication of the power supply system with capacitors built into the control panel, which will provide several autonomous closing-opening cycles of the taps even if you have batteries or if the power supply is not connected: the system will work on the ion sensors for at least one hour and after complete discharge - will block the taps.
Some competing solutions require a 220V connection or use 12V 1-1.5A * h lead batteries. Aquastorozh uses three 1.5V batteries that will definitely not harm anyone.
With direct leakage, the Aquastorozh electric motor shuts off the water supply in just three seconds. But during the flood, it is the speed of closing the taps that play the crucial role: it’s just to imagine how much damage the bathroom faucet can do, from where it can whip at a speed of one and a half liters per second. The three-second reaction of Aquastorozh reduces the consequences of the most dangerous pipe breakthrough to the effect of two or three liter bottles of water spilled on the floor. Which, of course, is unpleasant, but not a flood. The speed of “Aquastorozha” is provided by the Teflosil technology , due to which the system works from ordinary batteries, which you can buy in line at the cashier in the nearest supermarket.
A kit for two cranes with wired sensors will cost 19,000 rubles, with a wireless and radio base for them - 25,000 rubles. Order "Aquastorozh" through their official website . As a one-time investment, at the cost of the purchase and installation of Aquastorozh, of course, the purchase of insurance is much more substantial, but every year of operation - or for one prevented flood - this purchase will discourage the money spent.
At the same time, the guarantee for all the products in the kit is 2 years with the possibility to extend up to 4 years on the site . But the main thing here is that Akvastorozh is a disaster prevention system, and insurance is compensation for damage. Which approach is more reasonable in terms of the cost of possible loss of time and nerves - homeowners have to decide on their own. However, any choice made will be better than life on the “chance”.
When I forgot to block the riser
Each apartment has at least three water sources: a toilet, a faucet in the bathroom and a faucet in the kitchen. And this is also the Spartan minimum, calculated on the basis that the Soviet crane, turning from the sink to the bath and back, remained in the bathroom. In a modernly equipped housing there are much more sources of potential threat for me, for my neighbors and from my neighbors: separate taps in the bathroom, a system for connecting water to a washing machine, a faucet in the kitchen, a faucet for a water filter and water supply to the dishwasher. At the same time, it is impossible to guarantee the absolute reliability of all communications: the hoses and pipes that connect all this stuff have a tendency to wear out, not to mention banal leaks that will destroy not only the floors and furniture, but also leave messages on the ceiling of the neighbors.
Of course, the universal method of protecting equipment from failure is well known: prevention. And after all, apart from the annual inspection and inspection of all hoses and taps, you can also insure against emergency situations.
')
Home insurance
The first time I heard about the possibility of insuring an apartment against leakage was about 5 years ago, when I first rented a whole separate apartment at my disposal. When I saw an ad in the elevator, I thought something like: “This is a really useful topic; I need to know more. " Since then, I have moved at least three times - and guess how many of them I bought insurance for housing or discussed it with the landlord? For the first time, I actually somehow approached this issue when I already sat down to write this article.
Unlike CTP, which earned when it became compulsory, home insurance is still voluntary. According to a number of estimates, only about 10% of the housing stock of Moscow is insured, in the regions this figure is even less. Many of those who have reached at least the second stage of interest in the issue of insurance are scared away by the policy of the insurers themselves: most insurance companies offer only comprehensive package insurance solutions “from everything”, including fires, flooding, burglaries and other incidents.
Insurance apartments can hardly be called humane in terms of price, and the size of the payment is unlikely to cover all costs. For example, Renaissance Insurance offers a full package of insurance for an apartment for 5,500 rubles / year with the amount of payments of 400,000 rubles maximum in case of theft or fire, and 300,000 rubles - in case of damage to property of neighbors (civil liability). That is, I can rely somewhere $ 5000 on compensation for damage to flooded neighbors (at the current rate), despite the fact that a simple repair, which was done by the apartment owners, which I rented, could easily cost 1 million rubles, and higher - times exceeding the size of the maximum insurance payment.
But even this is half the trouble. In order to receive payment on insurance, you still have to go through a lot of bureaucratic procedures for assessing damage, recognizing a case of insurance, and so on: insurance companies easily sell policies to the right and left - everything changes when it comes time to make payments.
As an example.
You left the city and did not block the water. At this time, you have a hose in the kitchen and while the concerned neighbors tried to reach you, then they called all possible phones to you and to the housing office, until a plumber came and blocked the entire riser, you flooded three neighbors down. Then the most unpleasant begins.
Neighbors may try to bill you with "peace" - not showing the destruction or "hanging" all their problems and problems on the flood. In order to resolve this issue legally, it is necessary to draw up an act of flooding (gulf) apartments. This act is an organization that operates and maintains your home. The document should contain a detailed description of the flood with possible causes (breakthrough of your hose). Also in the act must be a detailed inventory of things spoiled by the flood, which is called the defect list.
One of the pitfalls of collecting these documents is the time when they need to be collected. Neighbors may insist that your flood could cause mold or bloat. On the other hand, wet wallpapers can just dry on the walls and look just like before the flood (if you are very lucky). That is, you can not deal with this problem even for a week, since the laminate can rise later. But you have not even reached your insurance company and there is a huge pitfall here.
Most insurance companies require an inspection of the place of flooding no later than 5-7 days after the flood. At the same time, ideally, insurers should call immediately after the flood. In order to apply for the payment of insurance, you must provide documents that you are a homeowner, plus an act of inspection of the home. That is, you have a maximum week to reach employees of the housing office or another organization serving your house, go around the neighbors, compile all the documents and submit them correctly to the insurance company.
But there still is not all. When drawing up documents on civil liability insurance for housing, you must read the contract very carefully. The Rosgosstrakh website, for example, lists the following non-insurance cases:
- Violation of the normative periods of property exploitation, production, non-production, construction, structural defects and defects of property objects and their individual elements, improper installation, repair, construction works in the insurance territory, unless otherwise provided by the insurance contract.
- Physical wear of structures, equipment, materials, etc. in the insurance territory, unless otherwise provided by the insurance contract.
- Rotting, corrosion or other natural processes of changing the properties of the insured property, unless otherwise provided by the insurance contract.
Thus, you may be "slipped" insurance against the flooding of your neighbors in case you, for example, forgot to turn off the tap. Because a broken or rotten pipe is a physical deterioration of the structure, that is, a case of non-insured.
Because of all this paperwork and a non-zero chance that the case is recognized as non-insured or the payment does not cover the damage, our fellow citizens prefer to install security alarms with doors that are stronger and check the electrical wiring with fuses, and the issue of protecting water communications is left to chance.
Alternatives to insurance
No one wants to buy insurance in order to protect themselves exclusively from flooding the neighbors, but problems in the sewage system and communications arise with enviable regularity. Responsibility of a tenant for communication begins with a crane in the riser, although the housing office in the event of an accident may try to hang its blunders on you, but this is a separate topic. The tap itself and everything after it is your problem, not those on whose balance the house is.
As an alternative to insurance, regular diagnostics of all communications can be considered: checking gaskets, taps, hoses and weak points of their connections with cranes and equipment. However, far from all the tenants show such vigilance - people usually are not inclined to check in advance something before it breaks down, and not everyone has the skills necessary for a correct check.
As another solution, smart home systems come to mind, but they no longer control communications, but “output devices”: taps and devices, so that in the case of a broken hose under the sink, a standard “smart home” will not save you and your neighbors from the bottom. It can be argued that the flood is stopped by the overlap of the crane from the riser. You will be surprised how much time an average apartment is empty, while its residents spend time at work and school.
As an effective alternative to insurance, you can offer an autonomous system that would, without the participation of the owner, shut off the water in case of a breakthrough - as the Aquastorozh leakage protection system does.
Aquastorozh is a portable autonomous system for shutting off water in the event of a leak. It consists of three main elements: a control unit, a leakage sensor (wired or wireless) and a valve. In the case of sensor activation, it transmits a signal to the unit, which in turn activates an electric motor on the tap to shut off the water. Wired solutions are more difficult in terms of concealed installation (laying in the walls and floor) - so if you have already lived in your apartment and do not plan repairs in the near future, the wireless system will be more convenient.
Now we can say that this solution is only one of those offered on the market, however, Akvastorozh against the background of competitors has several advantages:
- Low-voltage power supplies for cranes, three batteries of 1.5 V form factor C (R14).
- Backup power system to ensure operation in case of discharge of the main elements.
- The control system of open circuit (loss of sensor or tap) with the subsequent overlapping of water and warning the user.
- Control of the position of the ball valve in case of contact with scale or the formation of other possible interference to close the valve.
As well as in other similar systems, wire connection of cranes to the power supply, in this case - to the control panel is required. For this reason, the controller is most often installed near the riser. In the same place, immediately after the riser and in front of the meters and other devices, an Akvastorozh crane is installed.
Another advantage of “Aquastorozha” is duplication of the power supply system with capacitors built into the control panel, which will provide several autonomous closing-opening cycles of the taps even if you have batteries or if the power supply is not connected: the system will work on the ion sensors for at least one hour and after complete discharge - will block the taps.
Some competing solutions require a 220V connection or use 12V 1-1.5A * h lead batteries. Aquastorozh uses three 1.5V batteries that will definitely not harm anyone.
With direct leakage, the Aquastorozh electric motor shuts off the water supply in just three seconds. But during the flood, it is the speed of closing the taps that play the crucial role: it’s just to imagine how much damage the bathroom faucet can do, from where it can whip at a speed of one and a half liters per second. The three-second reaction of Aquastorozh reduces the consequences of the most dangerous pipe breakthrough to the effect of two or three liter bottles of water spilled on the floor. Which, of course, is unpleasant, but not a flood. The speed of “Aquastorozha” is provided by the Teflosil technology , due to which the system works from ordinary batteries, which you can buy in line at the cashier in the nearest supermarket.
A kit for two cranes with wired sensors will cost 19,000 rubles, with a wireless and radio base for them - 25,000 rubles. Order "Aquastorozh" through their official website . As a one-time investment, at the cost of the purchase and installation of Aquastorozh, of course, the purchase of insurance is much more substantial, but every year of operation - or for one prevented flood - this purchase will discourage the money spent.
At the same time, the guarantee for all the products in the kit is 2 years with the possibility to extend up to 4 years on the site . But the main thing here is that Akvastorozh is a disaster prevention system, and insurance is compensation for damage. Which approach is more reasonable in terms of the cost of possible loss of time and nerves - homeowners have to decide on their own. However, any choice made will be better than life on the “chance”.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/369971/
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