Water is an incredibly destructive force. I saw this three times during my five-year stint as an apartment building manager.
- An ice dam on the roof, which hardly ever happens in Seattle, caused water to leak into a couple of units.
- A flash flood caused by days of heavy rain and a sewer-system failure dumped five feet of muddy water into the underground parking garage.
- A backed-up toilet overflowed for about three hours, leaking into several apartments and the basement laundry room.
None of these situations could reasonably be anticipated. Then again, most of us don’t get hit by uninsured drivers or diagnosed with rare illnesses — but most of us consider car and health coverage to be necessary evils.
You also need renter’s insurance, to cover that which comes out of the blue — or from the apartment upstairs.