Several customers have received letters promoting water line repair insurance from a company called HomeServe. The insurance is supposed to cover the cost of the repair or replacement of the water line running from the meter to your home. A quick web search can locate many articles involving HomeServe. Some are quite skeptical of the firm yet other articles discuss how cities and towns entered into a partnership to provide the coverage to residents. One article claimed the city was receiving a percentage of the premiums collected. No such partnership or arrangement has been made in Topsfield.
The company's mailing states homeowners are responsible for repairing any leaks or replacing lines located on their property, which is true. A valve, called a curb stop, is installed at the boundary between Town property and private property. If the leak is before or at the valve then the Town repairs it. If the leak is after the valve then the homeowner is responsible for the repair.
At the root of this is the question of whether the insurance is needed or not. Typically less than a half dozen service leaks are found in Topsfield each year including both private and public leaks. Our system has 1,800 service connections so leaks occur infrequency. Ultimately the decision to purchase needs to be made by the homeowner and we recommend researching it thouroughly beforehand.
