Water & flood

What to do after water damage. What the carrier pays for.

A burst pipe, a sump-pump backup, a supply-line failure, or a sewer overflow — water damage is a documentation problem before it’s a money problem. The first 24–48 hours set the ceiling on every later argument, and mold risk attaches after that window closes. Below is the playbook we run on every water file: what to do (and what not to) in the first day, the five-step LightHouse process, a sample recovery band, and the carrier pushbacks we argue back. Reach out the moment the water’s stopped flowing; the earlier we’re on the file, the more coverage we can pull through.

The first 24–48 hours

What to do. What to avoid.

The first two days set the ceiling on every later argument. Half of this column is the work most policyholders never think to do; the other half is the work that quietly hands the carrier its strongest denials.

Do

Stop the source before anything else.Main shutoff, fixture shutoff, plumber, or — for a service-line failure — your utility. The carrier will look for documented proof the source was controlled; no shutoff record, no coverage argument.

Photograph standing water lines and wet material on the day of the loss.Date-stamped, geo-tagged media taken before extraction is the single most valuable evidence on a water file — it pegs the loss to the event date and rebuts every later “pre-existing seepage” denial.

Save every mitigation receipt from hour one.Extraction, dehumidifier rental, content pack-out and storage, antimicrobial treatment, even mileage. Mitigation cost is recoverable as ALE and “reasonable expense” — but only what’s documented.

Call us before you sign any release or mitigation-scope waiver.The mitigation contractor’s scope document is the carrier’s first move to cap your recovery. Don’t sign a blanket authorization unless a licensed public adjuster has read it alongside your policy.

Avoid

Don’t throw away water-damaged contents.A wet carpet and a soaked sofa in the bin let the carrier argue the loss is smaller than it was. Inventory first, photograph the pile in place, and dispose only after the adjuster and we have agreed.

Don’t run a household fan over wet drywall.Surface drying without a psychrometric dry-log and moisture-mapping readings is exactly what the carrier needs to label the moisture “pre-existing.” Documented drying is the rebuttal; improvised drying is the concession.

Don’t accept a flat ACV contents settlement.Most homeowner policies pay replacement cost on contents once the item is actually replaced. The difference between ACV and replacement cost on a sump-pump backup routinely runs five figures per room.

Don’t let the carrier’s preferred mitigation contractor write the scope.Their roster is indemnifying their own price, not your coverage. We pull in an independent, IICRC-certified drying contractor and a licensed estimator where the moisture map, contents, or code-upgrade argument is on the line.

The LightHouse 5-step process

From the water stopping to a signed settlement.

Every water loss is different, but the structure of a strong claim is the same. Here’s what working with LightHouse on a burst pipe, sump-pump backup, or sewer-backup loss looks like, start to finish.

Step 01
Emergency response + on-site scope
Within 24 hours of engagement we coordinate mitigation, secure the structure, draw a moisture-map baseline, and start the date-stamped photo + dry-log. Water losses move fast — the 24–48-hour mitigation window sets the ceiling on every later argument, and mold risk attaches after that.
Step 02
Policy review + coverage mapping
We read the policy end-to-end: dwelling, contents (RC vs. ACV), ALE, code-upgrade, mold remediation sublimit, sewer-backup and water-endorsement riders, debris removal, and “reasonable expense” mitigation coverage. The framework drives the claim, not the carrier’s first letter.
Step 03
Full loss documentation
Line-item inventory, contractor scope, contents priced at current replacement cost (not ACV), moisture-mapping readings, the psychrometric dry-log, hidden moisture in wall cavities and subfloor, and code-upgrade line items carved out from cosmetic repair.
Step 04
Third-party estimate
We commission an independent, licensed estimator’s Xactimate-style scope. Carriers litigate their own numbers; they negotiate harder against an independent scope, which moves the recovery up.
Step 05
Negotiation + settlement
Filed, rebutted, re-opened, escalated as many times as it takes. You review and approve the final number — we don’t sign until you do.

A sample recovery

What a typical water recovery looks like.

Anonymized to county-level only — no policyholder names, addresses, claim numbers, or exact figures. The point of this row is to show how the work lines up on a water matter, not to advertise a specific settlement. The full recovery gallery lives at{' case results .

Burlington County, NJ

Burst pipe — second-floor bath

$240K structure + ALE through rebuild + mitigation line

Full interior rebuild funded at replacement cost with mitigation and dehumidification billed separately and ALE carried through the entire rebuild window.

Illustrative · Anonymized · Recovery bands shown, exact figures withheld.

Carrier pushbacks we argue back

The four denials we see most often on a water file.

The carrier’s playbook on a water claim follows a pattern. Below are the four pushbacks we argue back most often, and how our rebuttal frames the line item back open.

Carrier tactic
Pre-existing condition / long-term seepage
Our rebuttal
Carriers love a “this was already wet” denial. We rebut with date-stamped moisture-mapping logs, the plumber’s source report, pre-loss photos, and a dry-log that pegs the loss to the event date — not a slow, invisible seep.
Carrier tactic
Mold is a maintenance exclusion
Our rebuttal
Mold coverage attaches when a covered water peril causes damage within 48 hours of the event. We run the documented-48h argument with the dry-log, antimicrobial treatment records, and a public-adjuster RFI that reframes the timeline — not the maintenance carve-out.
Carrier tactic
Sewer-backup denial — no endorsement on file
Our rebuttal
Many policies carry sewer-backup coverage under Coverage B / “other structures”, or as a packaged water endorsement the declarations page doesn’t surface as its own line. We map every endorsement, not just the declarations-page headline, and re-open the line.
Carrier tactic
Mitigation line item is “homeowner responsibility”
Our rebuttal
ALE and the policy’s “reasonable expense” clause pay mitigation cost that demonstrably reduced the loss. We re-open the line with the receipts, the moisture-map before/after, and the IICRC contractor’s scope — not the “homeowner responsibility” blanket.

Start your water claim

Tell us what happened. We’ll come back within one business day.

The intake takes sixty seconds and is non-binding. We’ll pre-fill your loss category so the form opens with the right context — a licensed public adjuster on our team replies personally, never a call center, and tells you straight up whether representation will move the number on your claim.

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