Unexpected appliance and household system breakdowns can be a financial nightmare for homeowners, often requiring hundreds or thousands of dollars to repair.

Breakdowns caused by fire or weather events typically are covered under most standard homeowner policies, but common losses caused by electrical and mechanical failures aren’t.

However, by adding equipment breakdown coverage to their policies, homeowners are protected against sudden, accidental equipment breakdowns and the staggering repair rates.

“Homeowner policies are designed to cover direct damage to equipment that occurs outside of the unit, damage often caused by fire, lightning or hail,” said Lisa Whitus, personal and commercial lines underwriting manager for Virginia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co.

“If your air conditioning unit burns up because of a house fire, that’d be a fire claim covered under your homeowner policy,” she said. “But if that equipment breaks down because the circuitry fails, that’s not a covered loss. Equipment breakdown coverage is designed to pick up where homeowner policies leave off, and covers breakdowns and failures that occur inside the equipment itself.”

Coverage can be purchased on a wide range of equipment, including air conditioning and electrical distribution systems, furnaces and heat pumps, kitchen appliances, and water heaters and water treatment systems. Electronics, home solar systems, health equipment and tools also can be endorsed.

Equipment breakdown coverage covers damage caused by electrical and mechanical failure to endorsed equipment, but it doesn’t cover routine maintenance. Coverage is relatively inexpensive, making the endorsement a wise choice for homeowners.

“It’s going to cover all kinds of property in your home—your major systems, appliances and electronics,” Whitus said. “Insurance is there for those catastrophic losses, and equipment breakdown coverage is there to cover the losses that create a need to replace a whole system. In some cases, those losses can amount to tens of thousands of dollars otherwise.”