My Gram built a narrow, tall set of shelves on wheels. The unit was as wide as her fridge was deep and was meant to sit alongside the fridge next to a wall in a nook afforded by the 'too-small-fridge or oversized-nook' problem.
Put a handle on one end and presto- instant pantry space!

Ice makers are a bad idea anyways. My sister had one and the water suppy line broke and flooded their basement while they were away. Don't think that can't happen with a $11,000 fridge either- it's just a general plumbing risk.

The more pipes you have, the more pipes are available to fail. That includes a water line for a fridge.

That said, a properly installed line using quality materials is not going to break. Ever. Period. Regardless of whether it's for an ice maker, drinking water, water filtration, instant water heater, whatever. Risk factor of the line itself should be no more than any other plumbing pipe already in the house. In fact it may even be better (you can't inspect what's already in your walls and floors.

Ok, you may want to replace the line if you've installed it 20 years ago. But owning a home means inspecting things like that once in a while.

As far as the fridge itself springing a leak... Well, that's a different story entirely, but again, not significantly more problem prone than any other plumbed fixture. If your fridge is a lemon you're probably going to find out right away.

The special consideration of a water connection to a fridge, is that this is a moveable appliance. So the water line will be made of some kind of flexible material, and will be subject to more stress than other fixures in the house (because fridges get pushed into place, and pulled out for cleaning etc..).

So it depends a lot upon the materials used, and the quality of workmanship of the minimum-wage contractor who installs it.

Cheers

And if you're really concerned about it, you could always install a ...

Well, dammit. I can't think of what to call them now, and a Google fails me, but they make these passive valves that detect when the flow of water is high, indicating a burst pipe, and automatically shut off the incoming water. I can't remember the exact specifics, but it's something like a spring-loaded cork that when the flow is low, stays out of the hole, but when the pressure goes up, the pressure pushes it into the hole and holds it there. Seems like it was even more passive than a spring, though.

It's called a "flow fuse".

SWMBO asked me to point out that we tore our entire kitchen down to bare studs/joists, moved a wall, rebuilt/rewired the entire kitchen, built/installed all new cabinets and countertops, all new appliances, added a new (second) sink area.. all for less than the cost of that one fridge.

Looks like that's the term used in industrial applications like hydraulics. Not that it couldn't be used for more residential applications.

But the product I was thinking of was the Flood Safe. Though in finding it, I did come across a number of reports of nasty failures.

My house is loaded with industrial parts. Thankfully, my wife thinks the stainless steel ball valves in the shower look nice.