A continuous flood: insurers named the main causes of leaks
Accidents of flexible pipes, plumbing connections and faulty engineering equipment are the main causes of leaks and flooding in apartment buildings, insurers told Izvestia. Floods account for 70% to 94% of payment requests from different companies. At the same time, the old housing stock is rapidly decaying — its average age in Russia has exceeded 40 years, and almost a third of houses have it for more than half a century. According to official estimates of the Ministry of Construction, the average wear of engineering communications is about 40%, in some regions — up to 80%.
What causes bays?
The main causes of leaks in homes are accidents of flexible pipes, plumbing connections, malfunction of engineering equipment and household appliances, insurance companies told Izvestia. In most cases, the breakdown occurs suddenly — during normal operation and without extreme external factors, AlfaStrakhovanie said.
So, according to the company, a quarter of the bays affect two or more apartments. In 11% of cases, the damage extends to at least three residential premises. In some incidents, the water passes through the ceilings to five or six floors at once.
Artyom Iskra, Managing Director of Renaissance Insurance, added that bays account for 70.5% of all insurance claims in apartments.
"The biggest leaks are damage to risers with flooding of several apartments from below," he said.
In Rosgosstrakh, in 2025, bays accounted for 94% of insurance claims, said Yulia Serova, head of the company's property and liability insurance department. The average payout increased by 10% compared to 2024.
— The causes of bays and leaks from the outside can be very different — worn—out communications, preventive maintenance related to heating systems, and just household carelessness - they forgot to turn on the valve, for example, — she said. — The amount of damage will be higher the longer the cause of the flood or leak has not been eliminated and the more apartments are affected by the water.
At RESO-Garantia, the number of applications for housing insurance policies increased 1.5 times year-on-year in 2026, said Pavel Zingarevich, senior product manager at the Retail Insurance department.
"The risks that clients most often seek compensation for are floods, mechanical impacts, fires, and natural disasters," he said. — Bays are the most common cause of insurance events, with 40% more such claims this year.
In Sberbank Insurance, 75% of the more than 28,000 housing insurance claims accounted for household bays in 2025.
The average payout amount for a "single" bay in "ALPHA insurance" last year was 185 thousand rubles. If the emergency affected the neighbors — 340 thousand. In cases with a spread over several floors, the total damage per incident is already about 1 million rubles.
Most often, in 38% of cases of "multi—storey" bays— water reaches neighboring apartments within the first 20 minutes after the leak begins. In the absence of the owners of the house, the scale of damage increases many times.
How communications are deteriorating
According to Rosstat, the average age of the housing stock in Russia has exceeded 40 years, and 30% of houses have more than 50 years. According to official estimates of the Ministry of Construction, the average wear of engineering communications is about 40%, in some regions — up to 80%.
"At the same time, only about 1% of the networks are being replaced per year, whereas at least 2-3% are needed to stabilize," said Igor Rastorguev, a leading analyst at AMarkets. — Infrastructure ages faster than it is updated, and accidents become a purely mathematically expected result.
According to the calculations of the Institute of National Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, by 2030, panel houses built in 1956-1969 with an area of about 54 million square meters will be suitable for the maximum operating time, and by 2040 this figure will grow to 216 million square meters. m. Without a systematic acceleration of capital repairs and modernization of networks, the number of leaks and flooding will only increase — no matter how much the specific apartment owner is conscientious.
The housing and communal services modernization program with financing of 4.5 trillion rubles until 2030 is a step in the right direction, but until the rate of network replacement increases at least two to three times, insurance claims on bays will continue to break records, experts believe.
The age of the housing stock increases the load on engineering communications inside the house, cold and hot water supply risers, indoor wiring, heating sections, sewer connections, shut-off valves and plumbing and household appliances connection points are becoming vulnerable, said an expert from the online hypermarket "All Tools.<url>" Maxim Sokolov. It is on these elements that corrosion, deposits, wear of seals and deformation of threaded connections accumulate over time.
—Additional risks are created by pressure drops, seasonal loads on the heating system, multiple local repairs and replacement of individual sections without a comprehensive upgrade of the entire chain," he said. — As a result, the network continues to operate as a set of elements of different ages with different safety margins, and any weak point quickly turns into a source of leakage. For this reason, the old housing stock often requires planned replacement of engineering systems, since targeted measures have only a short-term effect.
One of the reasons may be the division of responsibility for different sections of engineering systems: some relate to common household property (risers, branches from risers to the first disconnecting device and the first shut-off valves), some are the area of responsibility of the owner.
— The rules for the maintenance of common property provide for current, seasonal and extraordinary inspections of the house, — he said. — Therefore, this model requires high discipline from two parties at once: the managing organization for communal networks and the apartment owner for indoor equipment.
If regular maintenance of one part of the system is delayed, the probability of an accident may increase.
What other causes of damage to housing
Natural disasters, fires, mechanical damage, and illegal actions by third parties were named among other reasons for applying for payments from insurance companies. In 2026, there was a sharp increase in the number of losses due to heavy snowfalls, said Nikolai Tsvetnitsky, head of the Ingosstrakh Insurance Insurance Loss Settlement Department.
— In Moscow, a shelf with household supplies collapsed in the apartment of the tenants, which led to damage in the apartment below, — he shared. — The amount of the payment was more than 165 thousand rubles. In another case, two boys were walking around the city and noticed a balcony with torn plastic. Out of curiosity, they set fire to the plastic, and then immediately left. They did not notice how the fire and smoke caused the balcony to catch fire.
RESO-Garantia reported on several other similar cases. For example, a person applied for a payment for the risk of "Water damage" — the ceiling in the apartment leaked. It turned out that the neighbors from above had put the crops in a box in the kitchen, where the utility networks run. As a result, the vegetables rotted, and the liquid mass formed during the decomposition process seeped into the apartment of the neighbors from below. The covering of the kitchen cabinets swelled up in it, and the finish was damaged.
Another apartment was damaged due to a cast-iron bathtub. The neighbors from above dismantled it, put it against the wall, and during the repair work it fell to the floor. The force of the impact was such that the housing on the floor below was also damaged. The ceilings in the bedroom, kitchen and living room were damaged, cracks formed in the plaster in the bathroom and on the tiles.
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