Connecticut Homeowners Support Bill for Bad Foundations Fund

Connecticut homeowners said they need additional financial assistance to help with crumbling home foundations that threaten to collapse their houses.

Dozens of homeowners arrived in Hartford on Monday to support a bill that proposes every insurance company cover the peril of collapse due to decay or the use of faulty construction materials. The Hartford Courant reported that currently, insurance companies do not cover the replacement of a failing foundation.

The bill would also require a $20 surcharge on insurance policies to pay into a crumbling foundations assistance fund for homeowners dealing with failing foundations.

Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy has estimated that as many as 34,000 homes in 36 towns might have failing foundations since the issue of failing foundations was detected in Connecticut.

“I eat, sleep and breathe this crisis and I have been for the last two and a half years,” Willington resident Tim Heim said Monday.

A mineral known as pyrrhotite used in foundation construction is partly to blame for failing foundations, according to a state report.

Insurance companies have denied homeowners’ claims, saying the problem does not qualify for coverage under their definition of collapse. This leaves homeowners to cover costs for foundation repairs or replacement.

“Instead of seeing new houses built in my communities, I’m seeing them lifted and their foundations being replaced,” Republican state Rep. Tim Ackert said.

“It’s hard to tell people what’s going on in our district out there, but it’s really tough,” the Coventry representative added.