Call, claim number, and photos before you forget

The water already came in. Your job today isn’t a perfect cleanup. It’s a claim that can actually pay.

Call the number on your homeowners or flood declarations page. Ask for a claim number and write it on a card you can keep in your pocket. Phones die. Group chats scroll away.

Then walk the house with a camera before you throw a single sofa cushion. Houstonians often report that the first afternoon of panic is when they toss stuff they later needed to prove. You can bag wet clothes. You can’t reconstruct a water line you already scrubbed off the wall.

Do this now

1. Find the declarations page or carrier app and open a claim today, even if you are not home yet.
2. Write the claim number, date of loss, and the name of whoever took the call.
3. Photograph every room, the exterior water line, the street, and the garage slab before you move furniture.
4. If power is out, use a phone flashlight and take more photos than you think you need.
5. Do not let a door-knocker start demo until you have those photos and a claim number.

What to photograph first

Start outside. Shoot the street, the curb inlet, the front slab, and the stain on the brick or siding. That line is your best proof of how high the water got. Then go room by room: floors, baseboards, outlets, the water heater closet, and the garage.

Open drawers and closets after the wide shots. Serial plates on appliances matter. So do the insides of cabinets that wicked water up. Houstonians often report silt in the kickplates of kitchen cabinets even when the living room looked “just damp.” Get that on camera before a shop vac erases it.

Who to call if you have two policies

If you carry both homeowners and flood, open both claims. Say what you saw: street or bayou water in the house, rain through the roof, or both. You do not need a perfect legal theory on the phone. You need two claim numbers.

Write which number belongs to which policy. The flood adjuster and the homeowners adjuster are usually different people. Mixing their voicemails is how items fall through the gap for months.

If you are not in the house yet

You can still start the claim from a shelter, a cousin’s couch, or a hotel parking lot. Use the address of the damaged home. Ask the carrier how they want you to send photos once you get back in.

If the street is still closed, do not drive a flooded underpass to “check real quick.” The claim will wait an extra day. You will not come back from a drowned car on 59 or I-10.

Paper that survives a wet kitchen

Put the claim number, policy number, and adjuster contact in three places: your phone notes, a paper card, and a text to one person who is not in the house with you. If you find the paper policy in a wet file cabinet, photograph every page and move the original to a dry bag.

Keep the recorded date of loss consistent. Houston floods often start at night and get discovered at dawn. Use the date water entered the house, not the date you finally got through to a call center.

Do this next

1. Flood policy vs homeowners: what usually covers what
2. NFIP claims: the rough timeline Houstonians hit
3. Commercial providers hub

More in Start your insurance claim today.