Most Texas homeowners policies exclude the settling and expansive-clay movement behind Hill Country foundation damage — here's why, the narrow exceptions, and what your real options are in Boerne and Kendall County.
Standard homeowners insurance policies in Texas treat foundation settlement as an excluded peril, not a covered loss. Because the expansive clay soil across the Hill Country shrinks and swells gradually with the seasons rather than failing all at once, insurers classify the resulting cracks and settlement as gradual earth movement, a soil condition, not a sudden accident. That exclusion appears in virtually every standard HO-A or HO-B policy written in Kendall County, regardless of carrier.
A few situations can shift the answer. If a plumbing leak under the slab is the documented cause of soil saturation and the movement that followed, some policies cover the plumbing failure itself and, in some cases, the resulting foundation damage, though this varies significantly by carrier and policy language. Some Texas insurers also sell a separate foundation or slab-leak endorsement as an add-on, worth asking about before you need it, not after. And a few structural warranty products on new construction cover settlement for a defined window after the sale. Outside of these, counting on a standard policy to pay for foundation repair isn't realistic.
If you're purchasing a home in Boerne or anywhere in Kendall County, a pre-purchase foundation inspection is the moment existing movement gets discovered and priced into the deal, before it becomes solely your problem. A foundation showing diagonal cracks, uneven floors, or doors that stick is common enough here that many buyers make the inspection a contingency. Once you own the home, any settlement that shows up afterward is treated as pre-existing wear, not a fresh insurable event, so the leverage to negotiate repair or a price credit is gone.
Before assuming a claim is a dead end, it's worth documenting the timeline carefully. Photograph cracks and note when they appeared, keep any plumber's report if a leak was found and fixed, and get the foundation inspected before the evidence of a specific cause gets buried under ongoing seasonal movement. If a slab leak, burst supply line, or other sudden plumbing failure genuinely caused or worsened the damage, that paper trail is what your adjuster needs to evaluate whether the plumbing portion of the loss is covered, even in policies that exclude earth movement generally. Absent that kind of documented, sudden cause, a claim on ordinary seasonal settlement is very unlikely to be paid, and it's usually not worth the delay of filing one before starting repairs.
Without insurance covering it, most Hill Country homeowners pay for foundation repair directly, which makes an accurate, fixed-price inspection critical. What drives the price up or down is mainly how many piers the fix needs and how far the foundation has to be lifted, and that range is wide, from a handful of piers on one corner to a full perimeter job. Correcting the drainage that's feeding the clay's movement alongside the structural fix is usually what keeps the repair from repeating.
We come out, measure exactly how much the foundation has moved and why, and give you a clear written price before any work starts, no vague estimates and no pressure. The inspection is free, and the repair is backed by a lifetime transferable warranty. If you're trying to decide whether a crack or a sloping floor is worth acting on now, that's exactly where to start.
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