If the house is not safe to sleep in, you still have to sleep somewhere. Additional living expenses, often called ALE or loss of use, is the part of many homeowners policies that can help with a hotel, a short rental, and the extra cost of living away from your kitchen.
It’s not a vacation budget. It’s also not something most NFIP flood policies pay. That’s the sentence people miss after a Houston street-flood night. They book a week near the Medical Center, then learn the flood policy never included ALE.
So check the policy type first. Then keep every receipt like it is a boarding pass. If ALE applies, the carrier will want proof you could not stay and proof of what you spent beyond your normal life.
Do this now
- Read the declarations page for “loss of use” or ALE and call that carrier, not a flood-only line, to ask if your stay is eligible.
- Ask what they need: a hotel folio, a lease, grocery receipts, and a note that the house is uninhabitable.
- Photograph why you cannot stay: standing water, no power, sewage, or a cut-open first floor.
- Keep a folder for hotel, fuel, laundry, and extra food. Photograph each receipt the day you get it.
- Do not prepay three weeks in cash to a stranger because someone said “insurance will cover it.”
What ALE is trying to do
ALE is meant to keep you in a normal-ish life while the house is being made livable after a covered loss. Hotel, extra mileage, a laundromat, a temporary rental, sometimes extra food if you have no kitchen. Your mortgage and your normal grocery baseline do not become free.
If the loss is flood-only and you have no ALE on a flood form, the honest path is FEMA assistance if the county is declared, family, 211 for local housing leads, and a cheap, documented plan. Pretending the flood policy is a hotel policy wastes a week you do not have.
How to stay in a way you can explain
Pick lodging you can show on a bill: a hotel folio with dates and a rate, or a written short-term lease. Ask the carrier if they have a preferred hotel process. Some do. Some just want receipts.
Houstonians often report jumping between cousins and then losing the paper trail. If you stay with family, ask the carrier what, if anything, they will consider. Do not invent a “rent” invoice from your sister. That is a fast way to a fraud conversation.
Uninhabitable has to be real
No power, sewage in the hall, a cut-open kitchen, or a water line through the outlets is a story an adjuster understands. “The house feels depressing” is not. If CenterPoint is still out on your block, screenshot the outage map and save it with a date.
If only the garage flooded and the living floors are dry, ask before you check into a hotel on the claim. Emergency caution the first night is human. A two-week stay needs a reason the policy recognizes.
The daily cap nobody mentioned at midnight
ALE often has a time limit or a dollar cap. Ask what they are. A nicer room does not increase the cap. If you need two rooms for kids and a grandparent, say that up front.
Keep spending in the same folder as the claim number. When the house is dry enough to sleep in, the ALE clock usually starts dying. Do not stretch a hotel week to “wait for the new couch” unless the carrier said the house is still not livable.
Verify live. Status changes hourly. ALE rules are on your homeowners form, not on a flood brochure. Ask the carrier that wrote that policy. FEMA hotel or rental help, if any, is a separate track at DisasterAssistance.gov after a declaration.
Do this next
- Call, claim number, and photos before you forget
- Flood policy vs homeowners: what usually covers what
- Commercial providers hub
More in Start your insurance claim today.