Is restumping covered by insurance?
Usually not, and we would rather tell you that in the first two minutes than watch you spend six weeks on a claim that was never going to land. But there are real exceptions, and knowing which category you are in before you ring the insurer changes the outcome. Here is the honest map.
Why the usual answer is no.
Nine times out of ten, no, and we would rather say so upfront than watch you spend six weeks finding out. Home building policies insure sudden, accidental damage from a defined event. They almost universally exclude wear and tear, gradual deterioration, rot, and structural movement caused by the soil drying and swelling. Timber stumps perishing over forty years in Goulburn Valley clay is the textbook definition of everything on that exclusion list. It is not the insurer being difficult, it is that this is a maintenance and age issue, not an accident.
The reactive-clay exclusion is the one that stings most around here. Greater Shepparton sits on the riverine plain and most of the district is Class M to Class H reactive cracking clay under AS 2870, meaning the ground surface can move 20mm to 60mm between a wet winter and a dry February. Movement from that cycle is normal, expected, and specifically excluded from virtually every home policy sold in Victoria. When a Shepparton owner rings after a run of dry summers has dropped a corner, that is the clause that ends it.
The other common knockbacks.
- Pre-existing damage. If the crack was in the building report when you bought, it is not new.
- Faulty workmanship. A previous restump done badly is a dispute with that builder, not a claim.
- Lack of maintenance. Blocked vents and a downpipe discharging at the footing for a decade is the definition of it.
- Termites and rot. Excluded on most policies regardless of how sudden the collapse felt.
- Gradual escape of water. Many policies cover a burst but exclude a slow leak that has been weeping for months.
When a claim genuinely works.
When a specific insured event caused the damage and you can show it. The realistic ones are escape of liquid, where a burst water pipe or a failed hot water service has washed out or saturated the ground under a footing; impact, where a vehicle or a fallen tree has hit the structure; fire damage to subfloor timbers; and storm damage where that is a covered peril on your policy. The pattern is that the insurer pays for damage caused by the event, not for the pre-existing condition the event exposed. If the pipe burst under a wall where the stumps were already rotten, expect an argument about how much of it is attributable to the burst.
Escape of liquid is by far the most productive category in this district. A mains pipe letting go under a slab or beside a footing does two things at once: it erodes the bearing soil and it swells the clay, and a corner can drop 30mm in a fortnight. That is sudden, it is traceable to a single failure, and it is the sort of claim that ends in underpinning paid for by an insurer. Note that most policies cover the resulting damage but not the cost of repairing the pipe itself, which catches people out.
Flood, and the Goulburn floodplain.
Only if you hold flood cover, and on the Goulburn floodplain that is a real question rather than a formality. Flood has had a standard definition in Australian home insurance since 2012, and many Shepparton and Mooroopna properties are either priced heavily for it or have it excluded. Check the certificate rather than assuming. Even where flood cover exists, the same principle applies: the insurer covers what the water damaged, and a set of timber stumps that had been perishing since the 1980s is not something the flood created. Rotted bearers and joists ruined by inundation have a much cleaner claim than the stumps do. Our page on urgent and flood-related subfloor work covers why you should let the ground dry before committing to anything anyway.
Domestic building insurance is a different thing entirely.
It is a completely different product from your home policy and it protects you from your builder, not from the weather. Domestic building insurance is compulsory in Victoria for registered building work over $16,000, and most full restumps exceed that. It covers you if the builder dies, disappears or becomes insolvent before the work is finished or before defects are rectified, with a period of cover running years past completion for structural defects. Ask for the certificate before you pay anything beyond the legal deposit. A restumper who cannot produce one on a job over the threshold is a restumper to walk away from.
This is the insurance that actually matters on a restump, and it is the one nobody asks about. Your home policy will not pay for the restump. Your domestic building insurance is what stands behind the restump once it is done. The rest of the vetting sequence is on our contractor checklist, including the legal deposit caps that a lot of operators quietly ignore.
The order of operations matters.
Lodge first, and do not start any work beyond making the house safe until the insurer has assessed it. Insurers routinely decline the cost of repairs carried out before they had a chance to inspect, because you have destroyed the evidence of what caused it. The correct order is: make safe, photograph everything including the cause if you can see it, lodge the claim, let the assessor and their engineer attend, then get your quotes. We are happy to attend with an assessor and give a written scope. What we will not do is write a report saying a burst pipe caused damage that forty years of blocked vents caused.
A worked example.
A Shepparton home had a mains pipe fail under the side path. Over about three weeks the corner of the lounge dropped 28mm and the brickwork above the window opened a stair-step crack. The owner photographed the wet ground, the plumber’s invoice named the burst, and the insurer’s engineer attended. Four mass-concrete piers at $2,400 each, $9,600, plus engineering at $950 and the permit at $1,150, came to $11,700 and was paid, less the excess. The pipe repair itself was the owner’s. Had the same corner dropped 28mm over eight dry summers with no burst pipe, the same $11,700 would have been entirely the owner’s. Identical work, identical rate card, completely different bill, and the only difference was the cause. Rotted timbers from the same water were handled as a subfloor repair under the same claim.
Insurance questions we get every week.
Does home insurance cover restumping?
Nine times out of ten, no, and we would rather say so upfront than watch you spend six weeks finding out. Home building policies insure sudden, accidental damage from a defined event. They almost universally exclude wear and tear, gradual deterioration, rot, and structural movement caused by the soil drying and swelling. Timber stumps perishing over forty years in Goulburn Valley clay is the textbook definition of everything on that exclusion list. It is not the insurer being difficult, it is that this is a maintenance and age issue, not an accident.
When would insurance actually pay for stump or footing work?
When a specific insured event caused the damage and you can show it. The realistic ones are escape of liquid, where a burst water pipe or a failed hot water service has washed out or saturated the ground under a footing; impact, where a vehicle or a fallen tree has hit the structure; fire damage to subfloor timbers; and storm damage where that is a covered peril on your policy. The pattern is that the insurer pays for damage caused by the event, not for the pre-existing condition the event exposed. If the pipe burst under a wall where the stumps were already rotten, expect an argument about how much of it is attributable to the burst.
Is flood damage to my subfloor covered in Shepparton?
Only if you hold flood cover, and on the Goulburn floodplain that is a real question rather than a formality. Flood has had a standard definition in Australian home insurance since 2012, and many Shepparton and Mooroopna properties are either priced heavily for it or have it excluded. Check the certificate rather than assuming. Even where flood cover exists, the same principle applies: the insurer covers what the water damaged, and a set of timber stumps that had been perishing since the 1980s is not something the flood created. Rotted bearers and joists ruined by inundation have a much cleaner claim than the stumps do.
What is domestic building insurance and do I need it for a restump?
It is a completely different product from your home policy and it protects you from your builder, not from the weather. Domestic building insurance is compulsory in Victoria for registered building work over $16,000, and most full restumps exceed that. It covers you if the builder dies, disappears or becomes insolvent before the work is finished or before defects are rectified, with a period of cover running years past completion for structural defects. Ask for the certificate before you pay anything beyond the legal deposit. A restumper who cannot produce one on a job over the threshold is a restumper to walk away from.
Should I lodge an insurance claim before getting a restumping quote?
Lodge first, and do not start any work beyond making the house safe until the insurer has assessed it. Insurers routinely decline the cost of repairs carried out before they had a chance to inspect, because you have destroyed the evidence of what caused it. The correct order is: make safe, photograph everything including the cause if you can see it, lodge the claim, let the assessor and their engineer attend, then get your quotes. We are happy to attend with an assessor and give a written scope. What we will not do is write a report saying a burst pipe caused damage that forty years of blocked vents caused.
Areas we attend for assessments.
Not sure whether you have a claim?
A free inspection tells you what caused it, which is the only question the insurer will care about. We will give you a written scope for an assessor, or tell you straight that it is a maintenance job.