Hurricane & Wind Damage
Storm damage claims are fought over causation.
After a named storm, the argument is rarely whether your property was damaged. It is what did the damage, how much of it was already there, and which part of your policy pays. Those three questions decide what you receive.
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Where storm claims go wrong
Wind versus water
Your homeowners policy covers wind. Flood is a separate policy entirely. When both hit the same house on the same day, carriers have every incentive to call the damage water — and to leave you between two insurers.
The hurricane deductible
A named-storm deductible is a percentage of your dwelling coverage, not a flat sum, and it is often far larger than homeowners expect. It changes which losses are worth pursuing and how the claim should be presented.
The carrier’s engineer
A brief roof inspection produces a report attributing the damage to age, prior storms, or installation. An independent engineer walking the same roof frequently reaches a different conclusion, in writing.
Surge staffing
After a major landfall, carriers deploy thousands of temporary adjusters over a wide area. Files get handled fast and inconsistently, and quality suffers exactly when the stakes are highest.
Causation is the whole fight
A hurricane produces wind, wind-driven rain, storm surge, and flooding, and your coverage treats each of them differently. Carriers know this, and the causation determination made in the first inspection tends to govern everything that follows — including whether a second insurer ever gets involved.
Getting causation examined properly, early, by someone who is not paid by the carrier is the single highest-value step in a storm claim. It is far easier to establish what a storm did in the weeks after landfall than to reconstruct it a year later from photographs.
Document before you repair — but repair
Your policy requires you to mitigate: tarp the roof, dry the interior, stop the damage from spreading. It does not require you to destroy the evidence while doing it. Photograph and video everything from multiple angles before temporary repairs, keep every receipt, and keep the damaged materials where you safely can.
That documentation is what separates a storm claim that gets paid from one that turns into a year of argument about what the property looked like on the day the storm passed.
We practice on both sides of the Gulf
Averill & Reaney handle first-party property claims in Louisiana and Florida, from offices in Covington and Pace. Storms do not respect the state line, and the two states’ insurance statutes have moved in different directions in recent years. Knowing which set of rules governs your claim, and what each one requires of your carrier, is part of the representation.
Common questions
My claim was denied as flood damage, but I think it was wind. What now?
This is the most consequential dispute in Gulf Coast property claims, and it turns on evidence rather than argument — damage patterns, debris, wind speed and direction data, and high-water marks. An independent expert assessment is generally the way this gets resolved.
How does a hurricane deductible work?
It is a percentage of your dwelling coverage rather than a flat dollar amount, and it applies to losses from a named storm. On a home insured for $400,000, a two percent named-storm deductible is $8,000 before your carrier pays anything.
My roof was denied as old, but it was fine before the storm. Can I fight it?
Yes, and it is one of the most commonly reversed denials we handle. Prior inspection reports, real estate listing photographs, satellite imagery, and an independent engineering assessment are all used to establish the roof’s condition before the storm.
How long after a hurricane can I file a claim?
Deadlines apply and both Louisiana and Florida have shortened theirs in recent years, so the window is narrower than many homeowners assume. Call before you conclude you are out of time — the review costs nothing.
These answers are general information about property insurance claims, not legal advice about your claim. Every policy and every loss is different — talk to us about yours.
Talk to us about your storm claim
The review is free and we work on contingency — we get paid when you get paid. Talk to us before you accept that offer!