Travelers to Supplement State Aid for Crumbling Foundations

Hartford-based insurer Travelers has agreed to provide supplemental assistance to its customers in Connecticut with crumbling home foundations.

The money would be in addition to funds that homeowners can receive from an insurance entity set up by the state to help replace foundations built decades ago with faulty concrete.

Beginning Feb. 15, the program will provide eligible current customers up to $25,000 and eligible former customers up to $10,000, subject to program terms.

Travelers said the supplemental money can be used for expenses, such as replacing landscaping or a deck that needs to be torn down, which are not covered by the state program.

In July 2015, NBC Connecticut Investigates broke the story about dozens of homeowners in Hartford, Tolland and Windham counties who discovered their concrete foundations are deteriorating. The homes with faulty basements were all built between the early 1980s and the early 2000s and most began to show signs of deterioration between 10 and 20 years after construction.

An estimated 35,000 homes in Connecticut and Massachusetts are impacted by disintegrating concrete containing pyrrhotite, an iron sulfide that has reacted naturally with oxygen and water over the decades.

Gov. Dannel Malloy's office said they hope other insurers will follow Travelers lead and that the federal government will eventually step in.