Guide · The first days after

After the storm: the claims guide.

The storm is the short part. What decides the next six months is what happens in the first days after: what you photograph, what you sign, and who you let on the roof. This page is the calm, ordered version.

Safety still outranks paperwork. Wait for the official all-clear before moving around. Treat every downed line as live, watch for gas smells and weakened trees, and remember the quiet killer of the after-days: generators run outdoors only, never in the house or garage, well away from windows and doors. And never walk or drive through floodwater; depth, current, and what's in it are unknowable from the surface.

The first 72 hours, in order

Photograph everything before touching anything. Same phone, same habit as the pre-storm walk-through: wide shots of each room and elevation, then close-ups of damage, standing water lines, the roof from the ground. If you did the 48-Hour Checklist, your before pictures are already in the cloud, and before-and-after is the strongest documentation a claim can have.
Stop the bleeding, keep the receipts. Policies generally expect you to make reasonable temporary repairs that prevent further damage (a tarp on the roof, board over the broken window, moving soaked items out), and those costs are generally part of the claim, so save every receipt. Temporary means temporary: don't make permanent repairs, and don't throw damaged items away before the adjuster sees them or you've photographed them thoroughly.
Call the insurer early. Claims are often handled in the order they arrive, and after a big storm the queue grows by the hour. Have the policy number (from the declarations page you saved), describe the damage plainly, and write down the claim number, the adjuster's name, and every date and promise from every call. One notebook, or one notes file, for the whole claim.
Meet the adjuster prepared. Walk the property with them, point at everything on your photo list, and hand over (digitally) the inventory and photos. If flood is involved, remember it's a separate policy and usually a separate adjuster; wind and water damage get untangled between the two, which is exactly why time-stamped photos matter.
Slow down at the door-knock. Post-storm neighborhoods attract repair fraud, and state insurance departments issue the same warnings after every event: be wary of contractors who show up unsolicited, demand large payment up front, or push you to sign over your claim rights or benefits on the spot. Get written estimates, prefer licensed and insured local contractors, and let anything that must be signed wait until you've read it in daylight, ideally after your insurer has seen the damage.
If the numbers feel wrong, you have moves. Ask the adjuster to revisit with your documentation; ask your state insurance department about its complaint process. Public adjusters and attorneys exist for genuinely stuck claims; both take a share, so they're a considered step, not a reflex.

If the damage is beyond your policy

When a storm is bad enough for a federal disaster declaration, FEMA assistance programs can open for uninsured and underinsured losses (DisasterAssistance.gov is the front door), and low-interest disaster loans may be available through the SBA. These are supplements with their own rules, not replacements for insurance, and eligibility varies by declaration.

The best claims move happens in June: the photo inventory, the saved policy, and the two agent questions in the Insurance Readiness Checklist. Ten calm minutes before the season quietly outperform weeks of after-the-fact reconstruction.

Educational only, never insurance or legal advice; your policy, your state's rules, and your adjuster govern the actual claim. Pattern claims on this page (temporary-repair expectations, order-of-arrival handling, post-storm fraud warnings, disaster-assistance availability) are rendered with hedges and logged as VERIFY.md V21, V29, V30, V31, alongside the safety rows V4, V12, V16. Data-verified at build 2026-07-08.