Seattle averages around 150 days a year with measurable rain, and nearly every water damage call between November and February has rain somewhere in its story. Whether your insurer pays depends less on how much water came in than on which path it took. Here is the map.
The principle: sudden and accidental versus everything else
Standard Washington homeowners policies, the HO-3 form most carriers sell, cover direct physical loss from any cause that is not excluded. The exclusions that matter for rain are: water that seeps or leaks through the ground or a foundation; surface water and flood; water that backs up through sewers and drains; wear, tear and deterioration; repeated seepage or leakage over time; and neglect. Everything else, broadly, is covered.
So the question for every rain loss is: did the water get in because something was suddenly damaged, or because it seeped, flooded, backed up or found a worn-out path?
Usually covered
Wind damage to the roof that lets rain in. Shingles lifted or torn off by a storm, a branch through the roof, flashing peeled back by wind. The roof repair, the interior water damage and emergency tarping are typically covered.
A tree or branch on the house. Covered loss to the structure, the interior and the removal of the tree from the structure. Trees that fall in the yard without hitting anything are a different, smaller conversation.
Ice dam damage. Rare in Seattle but it happens in cold snaps; water backing up under shingles from an ice dam is treated as a sudden event by most policies.
Storm damage to windows and siding that admits rain.
Interior water damage from a roof leak, often even when the roof itself is excluded. This varies by policy and carrier. Document it and file.
Usually not covered
Seepage and groundwater. Water through basement walls, up through the slab, into a crawl space from saturated soil. The most common Seattle rain loss and the one standard policies exclude. The fix is drainage, not a claim.
Surface water and flood. Runoff across the yard and in through a door or vent, a creek over its banks, tidal flooding. Excluded; covered only by a flood policy.
Rain through an open window or door. No damage caused the opening, so no covered peril.
Gradual deterioration. A roof at the end of its life, flashing that has been failing for years, caulk that dried out a decade ago. Treated as maintenance.
Repeated leakage. A small leak that has been wetting the same wall every winter for three years. Excluded as repeated seepage or leakage over a period of time, and often also as neglect.
Covered only with an endorsement
Sewer and drain backup, and sump pump overflow. When the combined sewer surcharges in a storm and comes up the basement floor drain, or when the sump pump fails and the pit overflows. Standard policies exclude it; a water backup endorsement covers it up to a limit. Every Seattle homeowner with a basement should have this.
Limited seepage coverage. A few carriers offer it. Worth asking about for hillside homes.
Hidden water damage. Some policies now include or offer coverage for damage from a leak that was hidden inside a wall or under a floor, which addresses the repeated-leakage exclusion for leaks you could not have known about.
The cause is decided from the evidence
Adjusters determine cause from photographs, the restoration crew's report and sometimes an engineer's inspection. This is why crews document the roof surface, the flashing, the water path and the interior before anything is cleaned up, and why removed materials are photographed and measured. The same stain on a ceiling can be a covered wind loss or an excluded deterioration loss, and the file decides which.
What to do when rain is coming in
Stop the interior damage: buckets, plastic, a controlled drain hole in a sagging ceiling, furniture moved. Call for mitigation so tarping and drying start today. Photograph everything, including the outside of the house and the roof from the ground. Report the claim to your insurer the same day and tell them mitigation is underway. Do not have the roof repaired or the damage cleaned up before it is documented. And when you are told that a loss looks like seepage or deterioration, which crews will tell you honestly, decide about the work with a written estimate in hand rather than a hope about coverage.
