I just bought my house (built in 1955). It was on a septic, but the washing machine was backing up all of this black nasty stuff and we determined that the field lines had failed. So thousands of dollars later, we are on city sewer.
The washing machine still backs up, but the water is now clean and soapy (yay :) )

Can I collect anything from my homeowners insurance from this mess? How about the cost to asses the problem with the washing machine? How about the fact that I had to pay thousands of dollars to switch to the city sewer to avoid any future problems like this?

Some insurance policies cover flooding from burst pipes and things like that. You should call your insurance agent and discuss this with them to see if you are covered. You should have contacted the insurance agent before you paid out anything or had it fixed.

Okay, here is what I am going to say. The insurance company will most likely not cover the cost of switching to city water. The reason is that it was an improvement to the home and was not a result of the damage. You m ay be able to recover some of the damages like having the water cleaned out of the basement or having a plumber look into the problem. I'm about 99% sure that your insurance is not going to cover hooking you to the city water supply. Sorry.

Hope this helps,

Aaron

I work for an insurance company and we cover the damage caused by the escape of water e.g. pipes, boiler but don't cover replacing the cause of the damage. All insurance companies have different policy wordings so you need to check up on that