Why did our Asko washing machine flood?

Our Asko (model #W6424/1200RPM) washing machine flooded and caused severe damage to our home. It was seven years old. (We've learned most washing machines last for 11 years or more.) There was confusion about whether our home was insured (our college owns half of our condo), so unless Asko covers for some of the damage, our repair and remediation will be out of pocket.

We've been working with the company for seven months, but they seem unwilling to help. If we knew more about washing machines, we feel we'd be better able to advocate for ourselves. Asko at first seemed supportive. They sent an insurance adjuster who agreed that there was significant damage. Asko requested we send in the pump and show that we did not have insurance. After six months of waiting, Asko says that the pump looks fine, so they have no liability. They haven't suggested any other possible cause for the failure, nor said why they'd only be liable for the pump (and no other part of the machine). It has to have been the machine. Before the flooding, it was exhibiting some intermittent symptoms (stopping mid-cycle, incomplete drainage, a warning light, and some unusual sounds), but we couldn't find anyone local who would come and look at it. The repair person we found troubleshooted and replaced the pump with an Asko part from an authorized distributor. With a new pump these symptoms vanished. Is it possible that whatever was causing the problems shook out of the pump in transit, and when Asko received the pump, that element was no longer there? Or something more worrisome? The company that assessed the pump is Gorenje, which owns Asko. Our problems were intermittent. Perhaps these issues are not always replicable?

We hope Asko will cover the damage. It could only have come from the washing machine. A year before, we replaced the basket, and their literature online states very clearly that their clients need not worry about flooding, and that their units were built to last for decades. Few will repair their units (the nearest repair person is at least an hour and a half away). We believe Asko should not sell in areas where they cannot respond to their clients. Any thoughts or insights would be much appreciated.

Thank you both for your posts above. There was some confusion about insurance with our home, and we’re not covered. (We’re covered now.)

We’re trying to build a fuller picture of why our ASKO washing machine flooded our home. As noted above, we’ve been working with ASKO for 10 months. They’ve kept saying that because the pump looks fine (it took them six months to check the pump), the flooding is not their concern. The company suggested that we did not correctly close the trap when my husband cleaned it, and that this caused the flooding (cleaning out the trap is recommended by ASKO). This seems unlikely to us. We read ASKO’s manual and consulted with a repairperson before cleaning the trap, and my husband took a lot of care with this maintenance step. The parts and steps here seem simple and straightforward. After the flooding occurred, we didn’t touch anything of the machine. When the local repair person came, we all checked the trap together, and it was tight and in place. The hoses and seals looked good too. The washing machine continued to leak, so two ASKO repair people subsequently came. I asked them if failure to close the trap correctly could’ve created this kind of damage to our home, and they said absolutely not. The ASKO representative agreed that if the water in the tub got too high, the overflow guard function should come into play. It’s been a long time now to remember correctly (we’ve been in correspondence pretty continually with ASKO), but I have a memory of water streaming from the tub when the flooding took place. The damage to our home is enormous. Water ran through our entire plywood subfloor, and much of our wood flooring is now severely buckled (and I’ve been worried about mold). It also soaked high into the drywall. It’s hard to imagine that the trap could create this kind of flooding (we were home – not that much time had elapsed). Is it correct that the trap is probably not the cause of the flooding, or, if it is, would any other mechanism serve as a protection?