A CHILD'S BIRTHDAY PARTY ENDED WITH A BROKEN

A child's birthday party ended with a broken pool pump, a flooded backyard, and a homeowners insurance company dropping the family from coverage.

The party was supposed to be simple: a celebration at a friend's house for their 11-year-old daughter. The poster's 10-year-old daughter was invited, and at some point the kids broke off to play football. The friend's dad was tossing the ball around while the children ran after it.

Then the poster's daughter hit a rut in the yard.

That detail mattered because the backyard had been torn up by construction after a retaining wall was rebuilt, leaving uneven ground where machinery had passed. The poster says the family had already dealt with serious damage there the previous summer, when an above-ground pool broke while the friends were out of town and flooded the backyard. That earlier mess had been bad enough to involve homeowners insurance because of structural damage. The poster also says there had already been a need to "fix" the pump when the pool broke originally.

While chasing the football, the daughter tripped over one of those ruts and fell into a large metal box that held the pool pump and water intake and outflow. The box broke. Something inside broke too. Water started pouring into the backyard.

The family moved fast to shut off the water main, but the damage was already done. They were left "without water for about 48 hours" until a plumber came and fixed the pump correctly.

Later that fall, the poster's daughter had more injuries of her own: a broken collarbone, plus a severe sprain in her ankle and knee.

Then, about a week before the post, the family got a certified letter from the friends. It said they were charging them for "the cost of repairs to this broken pump the cost of the water damage to the backyard as well as them being without water for 48 hours."

After that letter arrived, the poster says they immediately called the friends' homeowners insurance. The idea was to submit the daughter's medical bills, using insurance information that had already been discussed over the summer.

That call changed everything.

The friend later phoned upset, saying the report to homeowners insurance had apparently pushed the policy too far. The friend said their premium had already gone up, and now "they were being dropped due to their excessive claims."