Pacific Home Warranty

Within 4 months after moving into our brand new home our ground water sump pump failed during a heavy rainfall period and half of our basement flooded. Because this was an emergency situation we called a restoration company in immediately to assess the situation and to start the clean up process. The next day we called Pacific Home Warranty to start our warranty claim and couldn't get through due to high call volume. The voice message we got told us that someone would be in contact with us. By the next day no one had called so we called them again and were able to get through. We were told that our claim would probably be started within about a week but we explained that we were in an emergency situation and needed it started right away. We got our claim started that day. Fortunately, the builder of our house agreed to repair the damages caused but would not cover the $4,500 clean up costs from the restoration company. This is the portion that we attempted to have covered under our warranty claim but they refused on the basis of their policy limitations: specifically, "LIMITATIONS: 3. Any repairs or investigations undertaken or costs incurred by the Insured without prior approval from 'the insurance company' shall be at the sole expense of the Insured and shall not be reimbursed by 'the insurance company'". When we reviewed the policy we also noticed that there is a section under Duty to Mitigate whereby it states that "1.'The insurance company" will require the Insured to mitigate any damage to the Detached New Home, including damage caused by Defects or water penetration, as set out in this Policy.
2. Subject to subsection 3, for Defects covered by this Policy, the duty to mitigate is met through timely notice in writing to 'the insurance company'.
3. The Insured must take all reasonable steps to restrict damage to the Detached New Home if the Defect requires immediate attention."
This was our argument that we should be covered under home warranty since we took the proper steps to mitigate further damage to our home by having the restoration company come in right away to do the clean up but we ultimately were still denied coverage. It seems to us that the home warranty company has written up their policy to ensure that they have every means possible to deny coverage when it comes to home warranty even though we completed their protocol as stipulated by them. Basically, in our opinion, home warranty coverage is a joke.
Also, we must say that the level of service that we received by Pacific Home Warranty was less than acceptable. I think we had communication (either via phone or email) by every person employed there at one point or another instead of having one person assigned to our case. Because no one seemed familiar with our case, every time we spoke to someone different we had to explain our entire situation to them. Also, there were many times when we had to call them to get an update on our claim since no one seemed to keep us informed in a timely manner. Also, at one point we were able to speak with one of the Vice Presidents during our claim process but when our claim was ultimately denied and we asked to have him contact us again, he never did call us back. We've still yet to hear from him.