TRAVELERS TO SUPPLEMENT STATE AID FOR CRUMBLING FOUNDATIONS

Hartford — Hartford-based insurer Travelers has agreed to provide supplemental assistance to its customers in Connecticut with crumbling home foundations.

The money, up to $25,000, would be in addition to funds that homeowners can receive from an insurance entity set up by the state to help replace foundations built decades ago with faulty concrete.

Travelers says the supplemental money can be used for expenses, such as replacing a deck that needs to be torn down, which are not covered by the state program.

An estimated 35,000 homes in Connecticut and Massachusetts are impacted by disintegrating concrete containing pyrrhotite, an iron sulfide that has reacted naturally with oxygen and water over the decades.

Gov. Dannel Malloy's office says they hope other insurers will follow Travelers’ lead and that the federal government will eventually step in.