Hurricane damage: how to document your Florida home after the storm

The first 24–72 hours

1. Stay away from wet electrical equipment and out of flood water Safety

   Ready.gov’s hurricane guidance is direct: do not touch electrical equipment if it is wet or if you are standing in water, and do not wade in flood water, which can contain dangerous pathogens that cause illnesses. Wear protective clothing and a face covering when you handle debris or mold. Photograph from a safe distance first and come back for close-ups once the area is safe.^[5]

2. Write down the date of loss and the storm’s official name

   Florida’s notice-of-claim statute counts from the date of loss, so record the date the storm hit your home and, if different, the date you first saw the damage. Note the storm’s name as the National Hurricane Center used it; you will use that name to look up advisory times later.^[4][6]

3. Photograph the outside of the house from all four sides before anything is moved

   Walk around the house and take one wide photo of each elevation, north, east, south and west, then closer photos of every opening, every missing piece and every pile of debris. Ready.gov’s instruction is to document any property damage with photographs and then contact your insurance company for assistance. Do this before tarps, boards or clearing.^[5]

4. Make emergency repairs, and photograph before and after each one

   If rain is still getting in, cover the opening. Take a photo of the opening before the tarp or board goes on, a photo after, and keep the receipt for every tarp, board, strap and nail. Florida DFS tells storm-affected homeowners to keep all receipts.^[1]

5. Call your insurer, and do not sign anything at the door

   Florida DFS’s storm guidance is blunt: following storm damage, don’t sign anything, and call its helpline first. Report the loss to your insurer, write down the date, the claim number and the name of the person you spoke to, and keep any contractor paperwork unsigned until you have read it.^[1][2]

Start with what you had before the storm

The strongest hurricane record starts before the hurricane. Florida DFS recommends an itemized list of your belongings with costs, purchase dates and serial numbers, with receipts attached for big-ticket items, and adds that dated photographs or videotapes of your possessions are also good ideas. If you took those photos while preparing for the season, they are now your baseline: the roof, the screen enclosure, the fence and the contents as they were on a known date.^[1]

• Find every pre-storm photo of the exterior and the interior, and note the date each was taken. Listing photos and phone snapshots count.
• Put the baseline photos in their own folder named with the date, apart from the post-storm set.
• Write the roof age, the year the house was built and the last major repair into Property Details.
• If you have no baseline, say so. A missing baseline is a fact; a guessed one is a problem.

Where the water or wind came in

A hurricane rarely damages a house in one way. Wind may open the roof, rain may be driven through a window frame, and surge or flood water may enter at ground level, all in the same night. Record each entry point as a separate fact with its own photos and its own timeline entry. Whether any of them matters for any policy is a question ClaimPrep does not answer; the record has to show each one clearly.

Photograph each entry point from outside and from inside so that a reader can connect the two: the ground shot of the slope, the attic shot under the same spot and the ceiling stain below it, all captioned with the same identifier. The pillar guide explains the identifier scheme; use it so that “north bedroom ceiling” always means the same place.

Build the timeline around official advisory times

You will not remember the exact hour a shingle lifted, and you should not guess. The National Hurricane Center archives its advisories by year and by storm, so you can look up the advisory times for the storm that hit you and note which one was in force when you first saw damage. The Storm Prediction Center publishes preliminary tornado, hail and wind reports with time, location and county, searchable by date; they add a third-party record of what was observed near you.^[6][7]

Add the power-outage start and restoration times, the time any evacuation order was lifted, and the date the county collected your debris. Each is a dated fact a reader can check against public records.

Emergency repairs and debris: photograph before, during and after

Ready.gov’s advice after a hurricane is to document any property damage with photographs and contact your insurance company for assistance. The order matters: a tarp hides the roof opening beneath it, so the photo of the opening has to exist before the cover goes on. Florida DFS adds that you should keep all receipts for repair and temporary living expenses.^[1][5]

• Before: the opening from the ground and, where safe, from inside, with the date in the caption.
• During: who did the work and what materials were used, so the receipt matches the photo.
• After: the tarp or board in place, showing how much of the roof or wall it spans.
• Receipts: tarps, boards, straps, fasteners, generator fuel and any labour, each marked with the area.

Debris piles disappear on the county’s schedule, not yours. Before the pickup, photograph each pile from a distance to show its size and then close up to show what is in it: roofing, fence panels, screen frames, tree limbs, wet drywall. Note the date the county collected it and keep a screenshot of any collection notice.

Inventory and receipts

Your damage inventory is the DFS itemized list restricted to what the storm affected: one row per item with its identifier, description, purchase date, price, serial number and the condition you found it in. Add an entry-point column so that a reader can tell what got wet from the roof and what got wet from surge. Write “unknown” where you cannot find a date or a price.^[1]

Keep estimates and paid receipts in separate rows and never add them into one total. Food lost during the power outage belongs in the inventory too: photograph the freezer contents before you discard them and note the outage hours.

Keeping the evidence

Hurricane documentation runs to hundreds of files. Keep them usable: originals only, one folder per day, one folder per area within it, and a file name that carries the identifier and the date. Copy everything to a second place, such as cloud storage, on the day you take it, because the next storm or a power surge can take the phone with it.

• Never delete or overwrite the original photo files; edited copies go alongside them.
• Save advisory screenshots and storm reports as files, not only as browser tabs.
• Photograph receipts as soon as you get them; thermal paper fades in a hot car.

Florida specifics: dates, deductibles and what DFS says

Florida’s notice-of-claim statute (s. 627.70132, 2025 text) sets a one-year window from the date of loss for notice of a claim and 18 months for a supplemental claim. Read the current statute and your policy; ClaimPrep does not interpret deadlines for you. For your record, the lesson is simple: write down the date of loss precisely, because statutes and policies count from it.^[4]

Your declarations page states whether a separate hurricane deductible applies to your policy. Florida DFS publishes a consumer guide named “Florida’s Hurricane Deductible” alongside its guides on post-disaster claims and the Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights. Read those documents and your policy; this guide does not explain how a deductible works.^[3]

DFS’s storm page also says: following storm damage, don’t sign anything, and call its helpline first. It notes that assignment-of-benefits agreements are prohibited for claims on property insurance contracts issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2023. That is DFS’s advice, presented as such; keep any document a contractor asks you to sign, unsigned, in your file until you have read it.^[1]

The Insurance Consumer Helpline is 1-877-MY-FL-CFO (1-877-693-5236), or (850) 413-3089 from out of state, and insurance assistance is available 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST, Monday through Friday. Have your company name, policy number, agent name, home address and contact information ready before you call.^[2]

What to document

What your documentation report will contain

A ClaimPrep documentation report organises what you recorded into these sections. It records facts; it does not value your loss or interpret your policy.

• Claim Summary
• Property Details
• Damage Summary
• Timeline of Events
• Affected Areas
• Detailed Documentation
• Mitigation Actions
• Documented Details
• Additional Documentation
• Photo Documentation

See a sample documentation report (a fictional example) or read how ClaimPrep works.

Who to contact

Your insurance company or agent

They receive notice of the loss and issue the claim number; record the date, the name and the number in your timeline.^[5]

Florida DFS Insurance Consumer Helpline, 1-877-MY-FL-CFO (1-877-693-5236), out of state (850) 413-3089

DFS says to call it before signing anything after storm damage; insurance assistance is available 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST, Monday through Friday.^[1][2]

Your county emergency management or solid waste office

They announce debris collection schedules and when areas are safe to return to; keep a screenshot of each notice with its date.

A licensed roofing or general contractor

They place tarps and make emergency repairs; ask for a dated receipt that lists the materials and the areas covered, and keep any estimate separate.

Common documentation mistakes

Tarping the roof before photographing the opening

Take the ground shot and, where safe, the attic shot first; the tarp can go on ten minutes later.

Letting the county take the debris pile before it is photographed

Photograph each pile wide and close the day it is made and again the day before collection.

Guessing the hour the damage happened

Write “unknown” and add the NHC advisory number and time that was in force; let the official record carry the time.

Signing a contractor’s paperwork at the door

Follow DFS’s advice: don’t sign anything, call the helpline first, and keep the unsigned document in your file.

Treating a roof leak, a window leak and surge as one event in the record

Give each entry point its own photos, identifier and timeline entry, even if they happened the same night.

Questions