How To Maximize Your Water Damage Insurance Claim

Surprisingly, one of the most common claims filed by homeowners in Florida is for water damage, significantly beating out hail and wind damage claims.

While not as dramatic at first glance, water can cause havoc to your home. To avoid any unnecessary financial strain in this scenario, you should know how to maximize water damage claim.

Let’s get started!

Types Of Water Damage Claims

Before learning how to maximize water damage claim, it’s useful to know what insurance covers. 

The first and most common type of damage is flooding, which is quite usual for Florida. This is why it’s important to purchase flood insurance because your regular home insurance doesn’t cover it. 

Your home insurance policy will cover other types of water damage, though. For example, damage to the structure of your home  as well as personal property. As an extra, if you’re forced to leave your home due to all that water, loss of use coverage will help you recover the costs of alternative living expenses.

Typical water damage claims include:

1. Burst pipes

2. Malfunctioning appliances (faulty water heater or dishwasher)

3. Sewage back-ups

4. Toilet overflow

5. Clogged gutters

6. Leaking roof

Strengthening Your Insurance Claim

Since repairing the damage and replacing any damaged items can leave you in financial ruin, you have to ensure your claim is strong enough. This way, you’ll circumvent a denied claim and recover the most money.

Here’s how to maximize water damage claim:

1. File the claim ASAP

The moment you spot water damage anywhere in your home, you should file an insurance claim. This starts the claims process, and the sooner you file a claim, the sooner it will get settled.

This is especially important in cases where many people will also file similar claims. For instance, if there was heavy rain in your area, you can bet that your insurance company is most likely dealing with other people too.

The good news is that insurance companies will most likely respect the order in which claims were filed. In other words, the faster you are, the sooner the insurance adjuster will arrive to inspect the damage.

2. Save your possessions from further damage

 Do your best to save as many things as possible by moving all the undamaged items as far as you can from the water. This is also useful for documenting the damage later, as you’ll know what’s ruined and what’s not.

That brings us to…

3. Documenting the damage

How to maximize water damage claim is mostly about properly documenting the extent of the damage. Make sure to take pictures of any standing water, as well as of all items that were affected by the water.

Documenting all your possessions will help provide proof for any damage not accounted for in your claim.

List down all the items along with brand names and their value. It’s helpful to find the receipts for those items as well.

4. Stop any additional damage from happening

Once your items are accounted for and you’ve documented the water, it’s time to drain it. This way you’ll prevent your home from suffering even more damage. Next, you’ll have to dry the afflicted areas. This can be tough as those places will still be wet. 

Try this method to dry your home a lot quicker. Lift the corners of the carpet and place fans around the room and you’ll speed up the drying process.

This will prevent pesky mold from growing, which is quite serious and would probably require filing a separate claim for mold remediation.

Next, if the water is still leaking into your home through the wall or the roof, feel free to use a tarp to prevent further damage.

Keep away from making any unauthorized repairs before checking the issue with your provider. This way, you’ll avoid the risk of making repairs that won’t be covered by your insurance.

5. Put the damaged items in one spot

Now that the worst is over, keep all the ruined items and put them in one spot. This will make it easier for the insurance adjuster to examine them and assess how much money you will receive for repairs or replacements.

Don’t throw away anything until your insurance company says it’s ok to do so (preferably in writing).

6. Contact a public adjuster

Unfortunately, even if you know how to maximize water damage claim, you can still run into hurdles with your policy provider. It’s in their best interest to pay you as little as possible so expect them to try to undervalue your claim. 

You can steer clear of this scenario by hiring a public adjuster at the very beginning. 

A public adjuster is an insurance claim expert who will represent your interests and review your policy to determine which coverages you’re entitled to. They will also inspect your property and put together a proof of loss report.

The insurance counterpart may not be as detailed when inspecting the damages and might overlook a lot of things. On the other hand, your own adjuster will take extra steps to discover hidden damages that might not be readily apparent.

Most importantly, they will negotiate on your behalf with the insurance company’s adjuster about the proper settlement amount.

Keeping It Simple

Now that you’re more familiar with how to maximize water damage claim, you’re on your way to repairing everything that water has destroyed in your home. 

The last consideration here is how many hours are you willing to spend working on your claim and how much savings you have. Imagine if you spent a lot of time documenting the damage and still ended up with a settlement that can’t cover all damages. How would you feel?

To avoid this outcome altogether, you should hire a public adjuster before filing the claim. By doing so, you can work on your recovery plan while the adjuster does the necessary work needed to ensure you end up with a maximum settlement.

Here at Continental Public Adjusters, we have four decades of experience and we’ve settled countless water damage claims. The best thing is we work on a contingency basis, which means we get paid out of your settlement. 

Call us now at (800) 989-4769 or fill out our contact form and let us help you maximize your water damage claim!