Storms are a Fact of Life in Southern Louisiana
Where we live, a storm doesn't need to have a name or a category to damage a roof, flood rooms, destroy contents, displace a family, and interrupt a business in a matter of hours. The insurance claim that follows may divide that single event into multiple coverages, deductibles, exclusions, deadlines, and policies.
The insurer may agree that damage occurred but dispute what caused it. It may approve limited repairs while excluding interior damage, depreciation, code upgrades, contents, or additional living expenses. It may classify some damage as wind and other damage as flood, wear and tear, poor maintenance, or a prior condition.
A strong storm claim therefore requires more than photographs and a repair estimate. It requires a disciplined answer to four questions:
- Coverage: Which policy and coverage part applies?
- Cause: What storm force produced each category of damage?
- Proof: What information has been given to the insurer, and in what form?
- Value: What does the policy promise to pay, and what evidence supports that amount?
Shirer Law helps New Orleans homeowners and businesses evaluate delayed, denied, and underpaid storm and hurricane insurance claims under Louisiana law.
Call 504-499-1010 to schedule a confidential consultation about your storm-damage claim.
First steps after hurricane or storm damage
Protect people and prevent additional damage
Address immediate safety hazards first. When it can be done safely, take reasonable temporary measures to prevent further damage—such as tarping an opening, extracting water, or moving undamaged contents away from exposure.
Photograph and video the conditions before temporary work begins. Keep receipts, contracts, invoices, and a log of who performed each service. Emergency mitigation is not the same as permanent reconstruction; avoid authorizing unnecessary demolition before the damage is documented and the insurer has a reasonable opportunity to inspect.
Report the loss promptly
Give the insurer notice and obtain a claim number. Identify all potentially applicable policies, including homeowners, commercial property, flood, excess, condominium, renters, and business-interruption coverage.
Report facts accurately without guessing about technical causation. “Water entered after the roof opened during the storm” is different from an unsupported conclusion about which policy must cover every part of the loss.
Preserve the property and the claim file
Keep damaged materials and contents when reasonably possible until they have been documented and inspection issues addressed. Preserve:
- Pre-storm and post-storm photographs
- Inspection, maintenance, and repair records
- Weather alerts and the timeline of the storm
- Contractor, roofer, engineer, and remediation reports
- Adjuster communications and portal messages
- Estimates, scopes, measurements, invoices, and receipts
- Mortgage and occupancy records
- Hotel, rental, meal, storage, and relocation expenses
- Business revenue, payroll, inventory, and operating records
Obtain the complete policy
The declarations page is not the whole contract. The answer may depend on endorsements changing wind coverage, named-storm or hurricane deductibles, roof-payment schedules, cosmetic-damage exclusions, ordinance-and-law coverage, replacement-cost conditions, water exclusions, appraisal, and suit limitations.
Wind and flood are not the same claim
Homeowners and commercial property policies
Property policies commonly cover some forms of direct physical loss caused by wind or wind-driven rain, subject to the actual wording, exclusions, deductibles, and conditions. Flood is generally excluded from standard homeowners and commercial-property policies.
Flood insurance
Flood coverage may come from the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood policy. An NFIP policy is governed by federal law and the Standard Flood Insurance Policy—not simply Louisiana insurance law.
NFIP claims generally require a complete, signed, and sworn proof of loss within 60 days of the loss unless FEMA issues a written extension for the particular event. Appeals and lawsuits also have separate federal requirements and deadlines. Do not assume an adjuster’s inspection, estimate, or partial payment replaces the policyholder’s obligations.
When wind and water combine
Many hurricane disputes involve both covered wind and excluded or separately insured flood. The timing and pathway of damage matter. Roof uplift, broken openings, wind-driven rain, surface-water inundation, storm surge, and drainage backup may implicate different terms.
We compare the physical evidence, policy wording, weather data, elevations, water lines, construction, and expert analysis rather than accepting a single broad label for the entire loss.
What should a storm claim include?
Dwelling or building damage
The repair scope may involve roofing, framing, sheathing, exterior components, windows, mechanical systems, drywall, flooring, finishes, and other building elements. The policy may address matching, repairability, depreciation, replacement cost, actual cash value, code upgrades, and overhead and profit differently.
Personal or business property
Contents claims require an inventory showing the item, quantity, age, condition, replacement information, and claimed value. Photographs, receipts, credit-card records, warranties, registrations, online purchase histories, and pre-loss video may corroborate ownership and value.
Additional living expenses
When covered damage makes a residence unfit to live in, the policy may reimburse the reasonable increase in living expenses necessary to maintain the household’s normal standard of living, subject to terms and limits. This is not necessarily a flat housing allowance. Keep proof of both normal and storm-related expenses.
Business interruption and extra expense
Commercial policies may cover lost business income and necessary extra expense during a defined period of restoration when covered physical damage interrupts operations. Revenue history, continuing expenses, seasonality, mitigation, supply constraints, and the cause of interruption all matter.
Debris removal, mitigation, and professional costs
Some policies provide additional or sublimited coverage for debris removal, emergency measures, loss assessment, code compliance, or certain professional fees. These benefits should be evaluated separately instead of being buried in a general repair estimate.
Why storm claims are underpaid or denied
Common disputes include:
- Wind versus flood or storm surge
- New storm damage versus wear, deterioration, or prior damage
- Repair versus replacement of the roof or building component
- Scope, pricing, labor, material, and code disagreements
- Actual cash value and depreciation calculations
- Proof that the deductible was paid
- Whether replacement-cost conditions were satisfied
- Excluded water, mold, or repeated seepage
- Insufficient contents documentation
- Duration and amount of additional living expenses
- Business-income causation and calculation
- Late notice or failure to provide requested information
- Alleged failure to mitigate
- Compliance with proof-of-loss or examination requirements
A disagreement does not automatically establish bad faith. It does, however, require the insurer’s position to be compared with the policy, the evidence available at each stage, the amounts indisputably due, and Louisiana’s adjustment and payment rules.
Louisiana catastrophe-claim procedures
Satisfactory proof of loss
Insurer deadlines are often tied to receipt of satisfactory proof of loss—not merely the date the storm occurred or the claim was opened. The proof should give the insurer enough information to act on coverage and the amount claimed.
For policies governed by Louisiana’s newer proof-of-loss statute, an insurer that requires an approved proof-of-loss form as a prerequisite to payment must provide it within the statutory time and make it readily accessible. Once the completed form is received, the statute regulates how the insurer identifies whether it is complete.
Do not confuse that Louisiana form with an NFIP proof of loss. They arise under different systems.
Adjustment, payment, and written offers
Louisiana establishes deadlines for initiating adjustment and paying or making written offers after satisfactory proof. Catastrophic residential-property claims and catastrophic commercial or other immovable-property claims have different payment periods.
Those periods do not make every estimate immediately payable. The question remains what amount was due based on the policy and proof received.
Cure notice before certain catastrophe-penalty claims
Louisiana law requires a 60-day written cure notice before an insured pursues penalties and attorney fees under the catastrophe-claim statute. The notice must adequately identify the violation and demand. Filing suit first can cause a stay and, in some circumstances, dismissal consequences.
A cure notice is therefore a substantive step, not a generic form letter. The policy, proof, undisputed amounts, insurer responses, and damage calculation should be organized before it is sent.
Claim-file and field-adjuster materials
Louisiana policyholders may request specified nonprivileged portions of a first-party property claim file. Current law also permits an insured to request the field-adjuster report. Those materials can help identify the measurements, photographs, reports, estimates, and assumptions the insurer used.
Appraisal, negotiation, complaint, or lawsuit?
Supplemental claim
Storm damage and repair costs are not always fully known after the first inspection. Louisiana law recognizes supplemental claims for newly discovered damage or additional costs. A supplement should identify what changed and provide supporting documentation.
Appraisal
Appraisal is a policy-based process for determining the amount of loss. It may be useful when coverage is accepted but scope or value remains disputed. Appraisal does not necessarily resolve every coverage, causation, statutory, or legal issue.
The policy’s current appraisal language, deadlines, appraiser qualifications, costs, and effect should be reviewed before demanding or rejecting the process.
Louisiana Department of Insurance complaint
A regulatory complaint can require an insurer to respond and can document a claims-handling concern. It does not replace proof of loss, preserve every judicial deadline, or guarantee payment.
Litigation
Suit may be appropriate when a material coverage or value dispute cannot be resolved, the insurer fails to pay an amount due, or a statutory claim is supported. Litigation should be built around the contract, admissible causation evidence, a supportable damage model, and compliance with pre-suit procedures.
How Shirer Law develops a hurricane claim
1. Reconstruct the coverage
We collect the policy, declarations, endorsements, renewal documents, deductible provisions, and any separate flood or excess coverage. We identify which terms applied on the date of loss and what duties the policy places on each side.
2. Build the storm and adjustment timeline
We track notice, inspections, information requests, proof submitted, estimates, offers, payments, denials, supplements, and deadlines. The timeline shows what the insurer knew and when it was in a position to act.
3. Separate cause, scope, and price
These are related but different disputes. We determine which evidence addresses the cause of damage, which work is necessary to repair covered damage, and what that work reasonably costs under the policy’s valuation method.
4. Document every coverage category
We do not treat the roof estimate as the entire claim. We identify building damage, contents, additional living expense, mitigation, debris removal, ordinance and law, business income, extra expense, and other potentially applicable coverages.
5. Select the right remedy
Depending on the dispute, the next step may be a complete proof of loss, supplemental claim, targeted document request, expert inspection, appraisal, cure notice, negotiation, regulatory complaint, or lawsuit.
Common mistakes after a hurricane
- Assuming the insurer’s adjuster prepares the claim for the policyholder
- Throwing away damaged items before documenting them
- Allowing unnecessary demolition before inspection
- Accepting “flood” or “old damage” without requesting the supporting basis
- Using one repair estimate for every coverage category
- Missing contents, relocation, mitigation, or business-income documentation
- Signing a contractor assignment, direction to pay, or financing agreement without review
- Treating a partial payment as a complete claim valuation
- Failing to submit a requested proof-of-loss form correctly
- Assuming the state property deadline also governs an NFIP claim
- Invoking or refusing appraisal without reading the current clause
- Filing suit without addressing a required catastrophe cure notice
- Waiting until the policy’s suit-limitation period is about to expire
Frequently asked questions
Does homeowners insurance cover hurricane damage?
It may cover covered wind and wind-driven-rain damage, subject to the policy, deductible, exclusions, and facts. Flood and storm surge are commonly excluded and require separate coverage. “Hurricane damage” is not one universal coverage category.
What if the insurer says the roof was old?
Age alone does not answer whether a covered event caused damage. The policy may also contain age-based roof schedules or valuation endorsements. Pre-storm condition, maintenance, storm forces, physical findings, repairability, and policy language should be evaluated together.
Can I cash a partial insurance check?
Often a partial or undisputed payment can be accepted without resolving the entire claim, but examine the check, accompanying letter, release language, mortgagee requirements, and applicable law first. Do not assume every payment is either a final settlement or consequence-free.
Must I use the insurer’s contractor?
Louisiana law generally requires an insurer recommending a preferred contractor to disclose that the policyholder is not obligated to use that contractor. The insured remains responsible for choosing qualified professionals and complying with the policy.
What is recoverable depreciation?
Replacement-cost policies may initially pay actual cash value and withhold depreciation until repair or replacement conditions are satisfied. The deductible, proof of incurred costs, deadlines, and policy language affect whether and when the holdback becomes payable.
Does a low estimate prove bad faith?
No. The analysis considers the policy, evidence, investigation, explanation, amounts indisputably due, timing, and applicable legal standard. A supportable difference of opinion may not justify penalties; an arbitrary refusal to address reliable proof may present a different issue.
How long do I have to sue?
There is no safe universal answer for every storm claim. Louisiana restricts how short certain first-party policy suit limitations may be, while catastrophe penalties have their own period and cure procedure. NFIP and private-flood claims follow different rules. Review the policy, loss date, denial, disaster orders, and governing law immediately.
How are attorney fees handled?
The fee arrangement depends on the claim and is explained in a written agreement. Louisiana statutes may permit recovery of attorney fees from an insurer when particular requirements are proven, but such an award is not automatic and should not be promised. Responsibility for case expenses should also be disclosed.
Prepare for your consultation
If available, bring or send:
- Every property, flood, excess, and related policy
- The declarations and endorsement pages
- Claim numbers and adjuster contact information
- Photographs and video from before and after the storm
- Insurer estimates, reports, letters, and payment explanations
- Proof-of-loss forms and submission confirmations
- Contractor, roofer, engineer, and remediation materials
- Contents inventories and ownership records
- Hotel, rental, storage, meal, and relocation receipts
- Business financial and interruption records
- A timeline of inspections, communications, offers, and payments
- Any appraisal demand, examination request, reservation, denial, release, or deadline notice
You do not need to know whether the dispute is “coverage,” “causation,” “valuation,” or “bad faith.” The review is intended to identify the problem and the most useful next step.
Get a clear assessment of the policy and the unpaid loss
If a hurricane or severe storm damaged your home or business and the claim has been delayed, denied, or underpaid, Shirer Law can evaluate the coverage, proof, adjustment record, valuation, and available remedies.
Call 504-499-1010 to schedule a confidential consultation.
This page provides general information, not legal advice. Reading it or contacting the firm does not create an attorney-client relationship. Coverage, remedies, and deadlines depend on the policy, facts, type of loss, and governing law. No outcome is guaranteed.