Cover · the pipe nobody thinks about

Service line coverage: the pipe between the street and your house

There is a pipe under your front garden that you own, that you cannot see, and that is as old as the house. In some Canadian cities your ownership stops at the property line; in others it runs under the road to the main. Few people find out which until it fails.

Service line cover is the endorsement written for that. It is the least discussed of the three optional water coverages and the one with the clearest boundary.

Where your responsibility starts

This is a local rule, not a national one, and two Ontario cities publish it in opposite forms. The City of Ottawa splits the pipe at the property line: the property owner is responsible from the property line to the home; the City is responsible from the property line to the main sewer.

The City of London does not split it at all. It states that “the homeowner is financially responsible for the entire length of the sanitary lateral pipe”, and that the City is responsible only for the sanitary sewer main within the roadway.

So the same collapsed section under the same boulevard is the City’s repair in Ottawa and the homeowner’s in London. An earlier version of this page said most municipalities draw the line in the same place. We had not surveyed most municipalities, and the second city we read showed that was wrong. Check your own city’s wording before assuming either. London’s rule in full.

Eight cities, two answers

Since this page was first written, this site has read the rule in six more cities. They fall into the same two camps: five split the pipe at the property line, three put the whole of it on the owner.

Winnipeg is the far end: the owner’s pipe runs under the street to the main, and the City says so in one sentence. Where your side reaches that far, service line coverage is the only cover on the policy that is written for the pipe itself. The comparison of what each city will and will not pay after a backup is on is the city responsible for a sewer backup?

The same logic applies to the water supply line coming the other way — where the pipe may also be lead, with its own city rules, set out on our page on lead water service lines. And IBC describes the water main case specifically: it covers “damage related to the escape of water from a broken water main”, “whether it occurs on or outside your property”.

What the ombudservice calls the same cover

What kills a buried line

Tree roots. Roots find the moisture and the joints in older clay pipe, and then they keep growing. This is the single commonest cause in established neighbourhoods, which is to say in exactly the streets with the biggest trees.

Age and material. Vitrified clay in pre-war housing, cast iron after that, then ABS and PVC. Clay fails at the joints. Cast iron corrodes and scales.

Ground movement. Frost heave over successive Canadian winters, settlement, and nearby excavation.

Grease and accumulation. Not a failure of the pipe, but the commonest reason it stops working, and the one where the line between blockage and damage gets argued.

The warning signs are ignorable for years and then are not: a floor drain that gurgles when the washing machine empties, a toilet on the lowest level that is slow only sometimes, a patch of the front garden that is greener or wetter than the rest.

What the endorsement does and does not do

Service line cover is generally written to pay for the repair or replacement of the buried line itself — the excavation, the pipe, and reinstating what had to be dug up — rather than for damage inside the house. That is the opposite of the sewer backup endorsement, which pays for the damage inside and not for the pipe.

So the two are complements rather than alternatives, and the combination people actually want is usually both.

What to ask, in the same spirit as the other pages here:

1. Which lines are included? Sewer only, or water supply too? Gas? Electrical service?
2. Is landscaping reinstatement covered? The excavation crosses whatever is on top of the pipe.
3. Does it cover blockage, or only damage? A root blockage cleared by a drain company is a different event from a collapsed pipe replaced.
4. Is there a waiting period? Commonly yes, precisely because the warning signs run for months.
5. Does the pipe's age or material affect eligibility? The houses most likely to need it are the ones with clay laterals.

This site cannot answer any of those for your policy, and it does not publish what the endorsement costs, because that is set per insurer and we have measured none of it.

Finding out what you have before it fails

Two things are worth doing on a house older than about 1970, and neither requires an insurer.

A camera survey of the lateral. A drain company runs a camera from a clean-out to the street and you watch the recording. It tells you the material, the condition, and whether roots are already in it. It is the single most informative thing you can buy about a house's drainage, and it is the thing nobody buys.

Find out whether you have a backwater valve. Ottawa's FAQ notes these became mandatory in new homes after 2004 for stormwater and 2012 for sanitary, so an older house very likely has not got one. The City's own description of how to check is to look between the last branch of the sewer line and where the pipe exits the foundation.

If the survey comes back badly, the municipal programmes in the cost section may contribute to the protective work even though they will not contribute to replacing the pipe.

Is a broken sewer line covered by home insurance?

This is the question most people type, and the honest answer has two halves that are decided separately.

The pipe. Replacing or repairing a buried line on your own property is not something a standard home policy pays for — it is the owner’s pipe to maintain, in every city this site has read. Service line coverage is the endorsement written for it, and the General Insurance OmbudService describes it in one sentence:

If you experience a leak, break, tear rupture or collapse of a water and/or sewer line on your property that causes damage to your home, this coverage will pay up to the specified limit

The water. What the broken line does to the house is a separate peril. If the sewer line fails and sewage comes up the floor drain, that is a sewer backup, which a standard Canadian policy does not include. If a water supply line fails suddenly, that is closer to the sudden and accidental escape a standard policy is written around. Two events, two parts of the policy, one broken pipe.

So “is a broken sewer line covered” usually means three questions: is the repair covered (only with service line cover), is the damage covered (only with the sewer backup endorsement, for sewage), and is the city paying for any of it (only where the city’s side failed — see is the city responsible?).

Is service line coverage worth it?

This site does not publish what the endorsement costs — premiums are set per policy and per insurer, and we have measured none of them. What can be said is which facts make it more or less relevant to a particular house.

How much of the pipe is yours. In Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and St. Catharines the owner’s side stops at the property line. In London and Hamilton it runs to the main; in Winnipeg, the City says, it runs under the street. The longer your side, the more a failure can cost you.

What a replacement costs where a city says. Only one Canadian city this site has found publishes a figure. London replaces a Private Drain Connection itself at a flat rate:

What the pipe is. Age and material. A lead water service, which Health Canada says the Plumbing Code allowed until 1975, is its own question with its own city programmes — see lead water service lines. A camera inspection is how you find out about the sewer side; see sewer camera inspection.

What else is on the policy. Service line cover pays for the pipe, up to a stated limit; it does not replace the sewer backup endorsement, which pays for the water. The questions to put to a broker: what is the limit, does it include excavation and restoration, does it cover the water supply line as well as the sewer, and is it offered on your property at all.

Where this sits among the three water endorsements

It helps to hold all three in one view, because they are sold separately, priced separately and confused constantly.

The pattern is that a standard Canadian policy handles water that escapes inside the house suddenly, and that all three of the ways water arrives from outside the house — up the drain, across the ground, or out of a broken buried pipe — are things you have to buy.

Questions people actually ask

Where to read next

• The damage-inside endorsement
• What happens when the lateral reverses
• Ottawa: the programme and the by-law
• All cover types, side by side