Trace and access costs, explained

Trace and access is the clause in a buildings insurance policy that pays to find a hidden leak and to open up the building to reach it. It is one of the most misread sections in a home policy, because the name describes the work rather than the trigger. Most wordings do not pay because you have a leak. They pay because the leak has damaged the building.

That distinction decides whether you get nothing, five thousand pounds, or a bill for the whole thing. Below is what the clause pays for, what it refuses, what the limits actually say in real policy documents, what a survey costs at our published rates, and how those two numbers meet. If you want the clause itself unpicked first, we cover what trace and access cover is separately. Every figure here comes from a policy wording or an ombudsman decision we opened and read.

The clause does two jobs, and only one of them is cheap

Read almost any trace and access wording and you will find two separate pieces of work bundled into one sentence. The first is finding the source. The second is removing whatever stands in the way and putting it back afterwards.

An AXA wording quoted in full in a Financial Ombudsman decision puts it like this: "We will pay up to £5,000 for any one claim for necessary and reasonable costs that you incur in finding the source of damage to the home caused by ... escape of water from a fixed water, drainage or heating installation ... This includes reinstating any wall floor ceiling drive fence or path removed or damaged during the search."

Aviva's home policy booklet says the same thing in different words: "If your home has been damaged by a water leak, we'll pay reasonable costs to remove any part of the internal structure of the home needed to find the source of the leak. We'll also make good after the leak's been fixed."

Notice what carries the money. Finding the source is a survey, and a survey is a few hours of an engineer's time. Removing part of the structure and making good is joinery, screed, tiling, plastering and decoration. The second job is routinely five or ten times the first. When people say their trace and access limit was not enough, they almost never mean the detection ran out of budget.

The trigger is damage to the building, not the existence of a leak

This is the part that costs people real money, so it is worth being blunt about it. Both wordings above are conditional. AXA pays for finding the source "of damage to the home". Aviva pays "if your home has been damaged by a water leak". A third wording, quoted in a 2025 ombudsman decision on an Accredited Insurance policy, is explicit: "If the buildings are damaged we will pay the reasonable and necessary costs in locating the source of the damage up to £5,000 in addition to the policy excess, including making good any damage caused during the search."

In that case the water company had told the homeowner there was a leak inside her boundary. She appointed her own engineer, the trace work caused substantial damage, and she obtained a quote of £34,000 plus VAT to repair what the investigation had opened up. The insurer estimated the damage at around £12,000, offered that, then revised the offer down to the £5,000 policy limit, then declined the claim altogether. The reason: she had said the leak itself had caused no damage to the property. The ombudsman agreed with the insurer and did not uphold the complaint. There was a leak, the leak was hers to fix, and the trace and access clause never engaged.

The good news is that the damage does not have to be visible. In a separate decision, an Aviva call handler refused a claim because there was no visible water damage, even though the customer's plumber had found a leak in a heating pipe under a concrete floor and had shut the system down to stop it worsening. The ombudsman rejected that argument outright, noting there was no reference to visible damage in the policy wording and that damage can be present without being seen.

What follows from this is practical. Photograph and video the damp, the staining and the water before anybody lifts a board. In a 2022 decision, a claim was upheld largely because the homeowner had a video of water spraying up at the floorboards and photographs of the soaked flooring, after the insurer's surveyor arrived a week late and the damaged flooring had been moved outside. Evidence gathered on day one is what makes the clause work.

How much cover you actually have

The figure varies more than most people expect, and it is not printed on your schedule as prominently as your buildings sum insured.

• £5,000 per claim is the most common number. Two of the three wordings above use exactly that figure.
• Some wordings set no separate cash cap at all. Aviva's booklet section quoted above states no sub-limit, so the constraint is the buildings sum insured and the word "reasonable".
• MoneySuperMarket describes the same spread from the market side: some insurers cap trace and access at around £5,000, while others offer unlimited cover.
• The excess usually still applies. The Accredited wording pays up to £5,000 "in addition to the policy excess". In the Aviva ombudsman case a £600 policy excess was deducted from the settlement.

So before you instruct anyone, get three answers from your insurer in writing: the trace and access limit in pounds, whether the excess sits on top of it or comes out of it, and whether they insist on their own approved contractor. Those three answers change what you should do next more than anything else in this article. Our step by step guide to a trace and access claim sets out the sequence in more detail.

What trace and access does not pay for

Four things, consistently, across every wording we read.

The repair of the leak itself. Aviva states the reason plainly: "We'll ask you to pay to repair or replace the leaking pipe or part if it had simply failed or worn out. This is because your policy doesn't cover wear and tear." A corroded joint in a fifty year old copper run is wear and tear, and the fifteen minutes it takes to remake it is yours.

The damage the leak caused. That belongs to the escape of water section, with its own limit, and it is usually the much larger number. MoneySuperMarket, citing the Association of British Insurers, puts the average burst pipe claim payout at £33,000 and reports that escape of water accounts for 29.51% of home insurance claims. Trace and access is the small budget that unlocks the big one.

Water coming in from outside. Trace and access applies to escape of water from a closed system: pipes, tanks, appliances, heating. Rain finding its way through a parapet, a flat roof or a blocked gutter is ingress, and it is a different conversation with your insurer. This matters more than it sounds. Across our last 400 leak detection surveys, 3% turned out not to be plumbing leaks at all, but gutters, roofs and other structural defects letting water in. If you are unsure which you have, a stain on the ceiling can be read either way until someone tests it.

Contents, and the cost of living elsewhere. Damaged possessions sit under contents cover, and alternative accommodation costs under their own section. MoneySuperMarket lists both as sitting outside trace and access, and notes that a contents-only policy is unlikely to include the clause at all.

What the survey itself costs, at our rates

We charge a fixed hourly rate, agreed before we travel, and it does not rise on the day.

• Standard leak detection: £160 an hour. A typical survey runs two to four hours, so £320 to £640.
• Trace and access, heating and mains work: £200 an hour.
• Moisture mapping: from £175 an hour. Emergency attendance: from £220 an hour.

Behind that sits no find, no fee. If we attend a confirmed live leak and cannot locate it, the detection time is not charged. We explain exactly how that works, and where it does not apply, in our no find no fee page, and the full rate card is on our pricing page.

For market context, MoneySuperMarket lists standard leak detection at £80 to £1,600 and infrared camera detection at £150 to £1,000. That spread is real, and it is mostly the difference between an hour with a moisture meter and a full survey with acoustics, thermal imaging and tracer gas. The methods are not interchangeable, and which ones a job needs is what actually sets the hours.

Put those numbers against a £5,000 limit and the arithmetic is clear. A four hour trace and access survey at £200 an hour is £800, which is sixteen per cent of a typical limit. The detection is almost never what exhausts the cover.

If you have a claim reference and need a survey booked, call 020 7123 8560. We will tell you on the phone which methods the job is likely to need, the hourly rate, and a realistic hour range before anyone sets off.

Where the money actually goes

The rest of the limit is consumed by access and reinstatement, and that is governed by the building, not by the leak. Lifting engineered boards over a floating floor is an hour. Breaking through screed over a concrete slab in a Victorian conversion, then re-screeding, re-tiling and redecorating, is a fortnight and a trade sequence. The £34,000 quote in the Accredited case was not for finding anything. It was for repairing what the search had opened up.

This is the strongest argument for precise detection rather than exploratory demolition. Across our last 400 surveys we found the cause in 95% of cases, and in a further 2% the water was coming from a neighbouring property, which is a different question about who pays before it is a question about who digs. Every square metre you do not open is limit you keep for reinstatement.

"Reasonable costs" is where the argument happens

Every wording pays reasonable costs, not your costs. Aviva's booklet defines the term: "we will pay costs for goods and services which are competitive in the relevant marketplace." That single word is the source of most trace and access disputes we see.

The Aviva ombudsman case shows the mechanics. The homeowner's contractor billed £11,333 including VAT for 66.5 hours of labour across four days, using a pressure test, thermal imaging, moisture readings and a tracer gas test. Aviva valued the same work at £1,152 including VAT, based on an estimated eight hours. After the provisional decision, Aviva revised its offer to three days of trace and access at £120 an hour plus VAT, plus £500 for the specialist tracer gas and £30 for waste, totalling £3,986. The ombudsman found neither figure reasonable, criticised the contractor's invoices for having no breakdown of the work, and ordered the parties to split the cost: £4,596.12, less the £600 excess, plus interest and £200 for the insurer's handling.

Two lessons come out of that decision and both are worth money. First, an invoice that does not itemise hours, methods and materials will be repriced by the insurer, and an ombudsman may agree with them. Second, an hourly rate that the insurer can compare to the market is far easier to defend than a lump sum. Our reports state the methods used, the hours, and where the leak was found, because that document is what your insurer assesses. If you are still deciding whether to claim at all, the cost comparison between claiming and paying is often closer than people assume once the excess is counted.

The order to do this in

1. Isolate the supply or the heating circuit and stop the loss.
2. Photograph and video the damage before anyone opens anything.
3. Call the insurer, open a claim, and get the three answers above: limit, excess treatment, approved contractor or your choice.
4. If you are instructing your own firm, agree the hourly rate in writing first and ask for an itemised report.
5. Keep detection, access and reinstatement as separate lines on the invoice. They are assessed differently.

We cover London out to the M25, all 32 boroughs. If you want a survey done in a way your insurer can assess, call 020 7123 8560 and we will agree the rate and the likely hours before we travel.