Seventy-five percent of homeowners overlooked inspecting seals in areas prone to water damage last year, tubs, windows, and roof flashing among them, according to Hippo Insurance’s 2026 Housepower Report. It’s the single most commonly skipped maintenance task the survey tracked, ahead of gutter cleaning, dryer vent cleaning, and every other item on the list. That gap matters more than most deferred maintenance because water damage doesn’t announce itself. It works quietly behind a wall or under a window sill for months before anyone notices a stain, a soft spot, or a musty smell, and by then the fix is no longer a $10 tube of caulk.
Why This Specific Task Gets Skipped
Fifty-seven percent of homeowners in the same report admitted they didn’t prioritize home maintenance enough in the past year, and seal inspection is a natural casualty of that. Unlike a broken appliance or a leaking pipe, a failing seal around a tub, window, or roof flashing gives no immediate signal. Caulk shrinks and cracks slowly. Flashing lifts a fraction of an inch at a time. Nothing stops working, so nothing forces the issue, until the water finds its way in.
Where These Seals Actually Fail
Tub and shower caulk breaks down from temperature swings and normal flexing of the surrounding surfaces, opening a gap that lets water track behind tile and into subfloor. Window seals, both the caulk around the frame and the weatherstripping inside it, degrade with sun exposure and let moisture into wall cavities where insulation holds it against wood framing. Roof flashing, the metal strips sealing joints around chimneys, vents, and valleys, is arguably the highest-stakes of the three: it’s rarely visible from the ground, so a lifted or corroded piece can leak for an entire season before it shows up as a ceiling stain two floors down.
What Skipping It Actually Costs
The average private homeowners insurance claim for water damage runs $13,954, and water damage and freezing is the second most common category of homeowners insurance claim behind wind and hail, according to the same research compilation of Insurance Information Institute and FEMA data. Compare that to the cost of the fix: a tube of quality silicone caulk runs under $15, and re-caulking a tub or a window is a task most homeowners can do themselves in under an hour. Roof flashing repair costs more, typically a few hundred dollars for a professional to reseal or replace a section, but that’s still a rounding error next to a five-figure water damage claim and the mold remediation that often follows it.
It’s Also the Task With No Obvious Owner
Part of why seal inspection ranks above every other neglected task in Hippo’s report is that it doesn’t fall neatly into a seasonal routine the way gutter cleaning or furnace filters do. Most homeowners have some mental checklist tied to fall or spring, clean the gutters before winter, change the filter when the seasons turn, but caulk and flashing don’t have that built-in prompt. Nothing about the calendar reminds you to check a bead of silicone around a tub, so it simply doesn’t happen until a stain on the ceiling below forces the issue.
The Twice-a-Year Fix
Checking these seals doesn’t require a professional inspection. Run a fingernail along tub and shower caulk lines twice a year and look for gaps, discoloration, or a soft, spongy feel. Check window caulk from both inside and outside, since failure often shows up on the exterior side first. Roof flashing is harder to self-inspect safely, but a pair of binoculars from the ground can catch obvious lifting or rust, and it’s worth a professional look any time you’re already having gutters cleaned or a roof inspected for something else.
Homeowners insurance also doesn’t treat all water damage the same way. Sudden, accidental events, like a burst pipe, are typically covered. Gradual damage from a seal that’s been failing for months or years often isn’t, because most policies exclude damage resulting from a lack of maintenance. That distinction means the $13,954 average claim figure actually understates the risk of skipped seal checks specifically: a slow leak behind a tub surround caused by degraded caulk is exactly the kind of gradual damage an insurer can point to and deny, leaving the homeowner to cover mold remediation and structural repair entirely out of pocket.
The pattern here isn’t unique to seals, it shows up anywhere maintenance is invisible until it fails: the tasks with no immediate consequence are exactly the ones that produce the largest bills down the line. A five-minute check twice a year is cheap insurance against a claim that averages five figures.
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