Pennsylvania families forced to evacuate homes after a water main break triggers sinkhole and raises questions about who should pay. Are you covered?

While local news reports didn’t detail whether the homes faced any flooding damage, sudden infrastructure issues like a water main break can leave homeowners in a situation where they have no choice but to leave their homes.

But having to pay for accommodations out of pocket might not be the only concern these families have. That’s because in many cases, neither municipalities nor insurance companies cover expenses related to the failure of water mains.

Who is responsible for damage caused by city-owned infrastructure?

The situation in Pennsylvania raises the question who should take ownership of damage caused by city-owned infrastructure? The answer isn’t always clear, leaving many homeowners surprised and unprepared.

You may expect that if a city water main burst and your home was flooded, your insurance would cover the damage. However, it is unlikely that a standard home insurance policy would automatically cover the cost of repairs.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, an insurance industry association, “Homeowners and renters insurance provides coverage for burst pipes, wind-driven rain and damage resulting from ice dams on your roof (2).

However, damage from flooding typically requires a separate flood insurance policy.

The organization notes that while some policies will cover sewer and drain backups, many do not and you would need to purchase a separate rider for this type of coverage.

Pennsylvania case not the first

Insurance company owner Chuck Shank told WRGB in a 2016 New York case that flood damage from a water main break would have to be covered out of pocket (3).

He went on to say that, if you try to file a claim with your municipality, “you have to prove that the city was negligent, that they didn’t do something that they were supposed to do and the city says, ‘Well, this water main has been working for 100 years, we didn’t have any reason to believe it was going to break.’”

Local governments often claim governmental immunity (also known as sovereign immunity) when it comes to issues such as water main breaks, which protects them from lawsuits (4).

Reiterating as much, a paper on personal property damage from water main breaks from 2021, published in the Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction, notes that municipalities “are often successful in defense utilizing sovereign immunity against negligence cases (5).”

The paper also notes that “insurance often refuses coverage for property damage from water entering from outside.”

That was the case for a Utah man whose home was severely damaged in 2019, after a water main break next to his house caused a sinkhole and thousands of gallons of water flooded his home (6).

Park City homeowner Mark Stemler told KSL News Utah that the flooding damaged the foundation of his house and repairs would likely be ”a few hundred thousand dollars.” While his homeowners insurance paid for damage to his drywall, it wouldn’t cover foundation repairs.

The water main break wasn’t caused by freezing temperatures; KSL News reported that at the time of the incident, municipal officials told media that the cause could have been new pavement.

A city-contracted crew laid new asphalt above the pipeline hours before the main broke. The crew also covered the access lids in the street where responders could have shut off the water, leaving crews digging for hours to try and find the valves.

Stemler filed a lawsuit against the city and the paving contractor.

A lawyer not involved in the case told KSL News that Utah law – the Governmental Immunity Act of Utah – makes it difficult to sue a city. And that’s exactly what the city argued in court, KSL News said.

Similarly, a water main break in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 2024 left more than a dozen homeowners in a similar situation. WZZM 13 in Grand Rapids reported that 15 claims were made against the city, totaling nearly $1 million in damages (7).