How To Avoid A Denial for Water Damage Claims

You have water damage at your home. Did you know that you will almost certainly have insurance coverage for the water extraction, decontamination of materials and drying equipment necessary to dry your house. You should also have coverage for any mold damage, mold testing, mold clearance testing or mold removal necessary to decontaminate any affected materials. And finally, your policy should pay for the water damage restoration or water damage reconstruction that will return your house to its original condition.

All of this is true, UNLESS, you make one simple mistake. You call your water damage loss a FLOOD! In the real world, when you have water in your house, you call it a flood damage. In insurance land, a flood is water that comes in from the outside or your structure not the inside (pipe leak, washing machine overflow, sewer backup, septic tank backup, air conditioner overflow, tub overflow or roof leak). For example, the creek overflows its banks or a hurricane dumps 20″ of rain and water rushes in from the outside of your house. No homeowners insurance policies cover flood damage. Flood damage coverage in the United States is run by the NFIP or National Flood Insurance Program. Claims are often reported directly to them although they will sometimes use local insurance companies to receive the calls and inspect the claims for them for a fee.

The important thing to remember is that if you report your water damage (water from a source within your house) as a flood (water originating from OUTSIDE), YOU LOSS WILL GET DENIED AND YOU WILL RECEIVE NO COVERAGE.

This is the reason that at NextGen Restoration and many other responsible vendors will offer to call in a claim for or with their clients. An experienced professional should not make these mistakes. My only warning is to make certain that your water damage restoration contractor does not have conflict of interest by being a preferred vendor or having another undisclosed relationship with your company. To learn more about preferred vendors and what you should know BEFORE you hire a restoration company, click here. The bottom line, make sure the restoration company you hire, works for you and has your best interest at heart, and not the insurance company.

As a parting note, please look at blog for other helpful things to know and do if you have a water damage, mold damage, sewer damage or fire damage claim.