By The Restoration HQ desk · · filed under Carriers & the Market
Smart-water goes from discount to mandate
Starting May 29, 2026, Mercury requires qualifying smart water leak-detection devices on certain new standard HO-3 policies. Carrier partnerships with Phyn and Moen Flo are expanding, and Phyn cites a 99% reduction in non-weather water claims across a 13,500-home study.
FORGet ahead of it: sell and install the shutoff tech yourself so you own the customer relationship before the loss instead of waiting for one.
AGAINSTCarriers aren't mandating leak detection to help homeowners, they're doing it to erase the water claims you depend on, and they're not sharing the savings with you.
Consensus vs. contrarianEveryone treats smart-water as a homeowner-convenience story. The operator angle nobody's saying out loud: this is carriers quietly shrinking the water-mitigation market, and the smart shops will pivot to selling prevention and monitoring before the mitigation volume actually dips.
Sources Mercury requirement, falconwest.com/mercury-insurance-water-leak-… Nationwide/Phyn, news.nationwide.com/nationwide-and-phyn-part…