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Sanitary Sewer Backups-Call the City First

The City of Marshall no longer has a sewer backup reimbursement policy.  The insurance carrier for the City follows the guidelines in Public Act 222 of 2001 to determine whether the City of Marshall is liable for any claims.  The act can be viewed at here.

To paraphrase the act, the City can only be held liable if all of the following conditions occur.

·         The sewage disposal system has a defect.

·         The City was aware of the defect or exercised reasonable diligence in identifying the defect.

·         The City failed to respond in a reasonable amount of time after the defect was detected.

·         The defect was a substantial proximate cause of the event.

·         The claim is made in writing with 45 days of the discovery of the damage.  The City's standard form can be found here.

The City of Marshall attempts to minimize the frequency of these events by cleaning sanitary sewers on a regular basis but incidents may still periodically occur.  If you experience a backup please call the City first:

·         (269) 781-8631 (7am to 11pm)

·         911 (11pm to 7am)

In order to ensure protection the City of Marshall encourages residents to add a rider for sanitary sewer backup coverage from an independent insurance agent.  The estimated cost of this rider is approximately $6.00 a month depending on the agency selected.