What is Covered by Flood Insurance – physical damage to your building or personal property “directly” caused by a flood is covered by your flood insurance policy. A flood is “A general and temporary condition of partial or complete inundation of two or more acres of normally dry land area or of two or more properties (at least one of which is your property) from: Overflow of inland or tidal waters; Unusual and rapid accumulation or runoff of surface waters from any source, ● Mudflow; or ● Collapse or subsidence of land along the shore of a lake or similar body of water as a result of erosion or undermining caused by waves or currents of water exceeding anticipated cyclical levels that result in a flood as defined above.”
With the aforementioned being said, it is important that the policyholders photograph their flood damages. Many times the policyholder is seeing their house for the first time and this is the time when photographing the damage is most important since content items have not been removed or interior wall board or flooring.
Policyholders can use their cell phones or camera’s to take the color photographs and upload them to a free cloud storage account to be accessed by the assigned flood adjuster.
Considering Contents Damage. Policyholders need to take a color and clear photograph of flood damaged contents to be claimed and provide them to their assigned flood adjuster. Below is a chart provided by FEMA regarding debris removal guidelines.
Considering Building Damage From Flood Waters. Policyholders should take a few moments to take color and clear photographs of every affected room. Take these photographs from the corner(s) of the room with your back to the wall with the camera pointed to the opposite corner and slightly downward. These photographs will provide overall views to assist you (the policyholder) in remembering the flood damaged contents in these rooms along with giving an overall view of the damaged flooring, wall, trim, etc…
Consider signing up for a free cloud based storage account such as Dropbox or Google Drive to store your photographs and share with the adjuster. The photographs will remain in the cloud storage to be retrieved at any time.