Whose pipe is it, before whose claim is it
There is an ownership question before there is an insurance question, and it is settled by water industry practice rather than by your insurer.
CCW, the statutory body representing water consumers, sets the line at the property boundary: the water main in the street and the connection up to the boundary, where the outside stop valve and meter normally sit, belong to the water company. The supply pipe from there into the house is the householder's. Internal pipework and fittings are the householder's too. Where one pipe serves several properties, CCW treats it as the joint responsibility of every owner connected to it.
| Section of pipe | Whose | Who normally repairs it |
|---|
| Water main in the street | Water company | Water company |
| Connection from the main to your boundary | Water company | Water company |
| Supply pipe, boundary to the house | You | You, or your insurer if the wording responds |
| Shared supply serving several homes | Jointly, everyone connected | Shared between the owners |
| Internal plumbing past the stopcock | You | You |
Where a supply pipe sits in a home policy
Not under escape of water, usually. That section is about damage the water does to the building, and a supply leak in a garden or under a drive often does no damage to the building at all.
It sits under underground services, which some insurers include as standard and others sell as part of accidental damage cover. Homeprotect's booklet defines buildings to include underground services that serve the home, defines those services as pipes, drains and tanks the policyholder is responsible for, and ties the boundary to the Land Registry title plan. esure covers repairing underground pipes serving the home "which You are legally responsible for, and which break accidentally".
That last phrase is the gate. Which brings us to the problem with London supply pipes.
Accidentally, not eventually
Most supply pipe failures in older London housing are not accidents. A lead pipe laid before the war thins and splits. An early MDPE or alkathene run fails at a compression joint that has been weeping for years. Both are deterioration, and deterioration is excluded by the wear and tear, gradual damage and lack of maintenance clauses that appear in every wording we have read.
What does read as accidental damage: a spade, an auger or a mini-digger through a pipe during landscaping, a trench collapse, a shallow run split by frost, or root intrusion where the policy names it. Homeprotect, for instance, covers damage to underground services caused by tree roots or other vegetation.
There is a second trap. Replacing a lead supply is a sensible thing to do for water quality, and it is not an insured loss, because upgrading a pipe that has not failed is an improvement. If lead is the reason you are asking, treat it as a planned job and not a claim.
The limits are small, and they are per claim
Underground work is groundwork, and groundwork is where budgets go. The sub-limit is the number to find.
Homeprotect's booklet caps damage to underground services at £1,500 per claim on its basic accidental damage tier, and caps blockage claims on an underground pipe or drain at £5,000 on the fuller tier. It also conditions blockage cover on having first tried established methods such as rodding. Those are one insurer's published figures; the point is that a sub-limit exists and that it is not the buildings sum insured.
The other route, which is often the better one
Before you claim, speak to your water company. CCW's guidance is that a domestic customer with a leak on the supply pipe should ask their company whether it offers one-off assistance in locating and repairing the leak, and notes that the conditions vary from company to company. There is no universal scheme and no fixed contribution, so ask about yours rather than relying on anything you read second hand.
Separately, once the leak is repaired, CCW says your company should offer a leakage allowance for the water lost, and that you should also ask the sewerage company for an allowance for water that leaked away without returning to the sewer. On a metered supply that allowance is frequently worth more than the sub-limit on an underground services section, and it does not touch your no-claims position or your excess. Our Thames Water pages cover how the notice and allowance process runs in London, including the deadlines and evidence for the Thames Water leak allowance.
A repair on your own supply pipe should be done by a plumber approved under WaterSafe or an equivalent scheme, because water companies and insurers both ask who did the work. What that approval does and does not cover is explained in Thames Water approved contractors.
Proving it is the supply pipe at all
Do this before anyone quotes for excavation.
- Turn off every water-using appliance and every tap.
- Read the meter, wait an hour with nothing drawing water, and read it again. Movement means a loss somewhere on your side.
- Close the internal stopcock and repeat. If the meter still moves, the loss is between the meter and the stopcock, which is the buried supply pipe. If it stops, the loss is inside the house.
That ten-minute test separates an internal detection job from an external one, and it is set out in more detail on our meter test page.
What to look for in your own schedule
- Underground services or underground pipes and cables, and whether it is included or optional.
- Which you are legally responsible for, and how the wording defines boundary.
- Break accidentally, accidental damage, sudden and unforeseen.
- Wear and tear, gradual deterioration, inherent defect.
- The limit per claim against each of those headings.
Cover varies by insurer and by tier, and your own schedule and booklet are the only authority on what you hold. Nothing here is a statement about your policy or a recommendation about your insurance.
When not to call us
If the water is surfacing in the pavement, the verge or the road beyond your boundary, report it to the water company and do not pay anyone to find it. If the meter is completely still with everything off, you do not have a supply leak. If you simply want lead replaced for water quality, that is a scheduled replacement job, not detection.
What we do and what it costs
We trace the buried run and pinpoint the loss before any ground is opened, using acoustic correlation, tracer gas and thermal survey, then repair or replace the section and reinstate the ground, path or drive. Detection is charged at £150 per hour, fixed before we attend, with no find, no fee. See mains and supply pipe repair, and the claims side on our insurance claims hub.
