Flood Advice From Former Flood Victim

If you have flood insurance you should be getting a call from your insurance adjuster. If you applied for FEMA disaster assistance you should be getting a call from a FEMA inspector. These are two separate entities with different purposes.

Insurance adjuster:  
Assigned by your flood insurance company to determine the "Proof of Loss" (POL), or your flood insurance claim. The POL must be completed within 60 days of the of the flood. After you provide your adjuster with as much "evidence" as possible of your contents and building loss, they will provide you with the POL. You should review it and if you don't agree, you can tell them what needs to be changed or added.  It should be a negotiation back and forth between you and your adjuster. You may get solicited by public adjusters. These are people that make a profit by helping you negotiate your POL. I would only use them as last resort after you've tried negotiating. We saw several rough draft POLs before we signed the one we agreed on. If your POL is not yet finalized and you are getting close to 60 days, ask the adjuster to file for an extension.

Evidence can be:

1. Pictures of contents/structures in your house
2. Receipts
3. If you don't have receipts, go through your credit card statements and highlight and put a note next to the price of the item there.
4. Contents spreadsheet

The initial visit by adjuster is pretty simple. They walk around and take pictures. You don't have to give much information. They will give you some pamphlets that are not helpful. They give you their contact info which is helpful...ask for phone number, email and fax (because you will to send them pictures and documents as part of your evidence). You don't need to provide much info or evidence at this meeting. If there are samples of your structure that you tore out, show them (built-ins, flooring, etc). Basically give them a general tour of your house.They may want to see your piles of trash. Take your time by gathering your evidence over the next week or two before and then submit it to them via email.

FEMA Inspector: 
Assigned by FEMA to confirm you indeed flooded and need FEMA assistance such as rental assistance, the SBA loan, or other programs you're eligible for (especially helpful if you don't have flood insurance). They will provide proof of who they are with a name badge. You will need to provide them with a copy of your homeowners insurance FULL policy (not just declaration page). The reason is, it has to state in the policy that it doesn't cover anything for floods. All homeowner's policies should have this stated in their somewhere...if you can't find it, ask your insurance agent to find that page of the policy and email to you. (You may also need to provide this to FEMA to get rental assistance to prove your homeowners doesn't provide it). The inspector asks very simple questions about who lives in your home and this is a quick inspection.

Contributed by Sheila Dailey Nguyen (based on her home flood experience in 2015 & 2016)