The 72-Hour Checklist: What to Do Immediately After a Home Disaster

The insurance and recovery decisions you make in the first 72 hours after a disaster shape everything that follows. Mistakes made in this window — throwing away damaged property, talking to adjusters before you understand your policy, signing documents under pressure — can close off options permanently. This checklist is built from the patterns we see repeatedly in the cases that come to Bright Harbor: what the survivors who recovered well did in the first three days, and what the ones who struggled did differently.

Hour 0–6: Safety and Documentation Before Anything Else

Before you think about insurance, think about safety. If your home is structurally compromised after a fire, flood, or earthquake, do not re-enter without clearance from the fire department or a structural engineer. Gas leaks and compromised electrical systems cause secondary deaths and injuries in the days following disasters. If the utility company has not already shut off service, call them before entering.

Once you can safely access the property, start photographing and videoing before touching or moving anything. Walk every room. Open every closet. Capture the ceiling, floors, walls, and all personal property in place. Date-stamp is critical — your phone's camera metadata works for this. Take more photos than you think you need. The rule we use at Bright Harbor: if you're questioning whether to photograph something, photograph it.

Upload everything to cloud storage immediately. Do not leave the documentation only on a device that could be lost or damaged in subsequent weather. Email the files to yourself, upload to Google Drive or iCloud, or text to a family member out of state. Two redundant copies minimum.

Hour 6–12: Make the Right Calls in the Right Order

Call your insurance company to report the loss. This starts the claims clock and in many policies triggers the duty-to-cooperate provisions — you are required to notify promptly. However, reporting a loss is different from giving a recorded statement. You can and should report the loss without agreeing to a recorded interview on the same call. Ask the claims representative to schedule the adjuster appointment and send you the claim number in writing.

If your county or city has issued a disaster declaration, check DisasterAssistance.gov for your disaster declaration number. FEMA Individual Assistance applications typically open within days of a declaration. Early applications receive earlier review — being in the queue matters because funds are sometimes limited.

Contact your mortgage servicer to inform them of the damage. This is not optional — your mortgage agreement requires it. Lenders are listed on your homeowners policy as the mortgagee and will receive insurance checks jointly. Notifying them early prevents delays when you need the check endorsed to begin repairs. Some servicers also have short-term forbearance programs available for disaster-affected borrowers.

What Not to Say to Your Insurance Company (Yet)

The initial adjuster call is not a conversation between equals. Adjusters are trained claim professionals. You are a homeowner in crisis. The words you use in the first call can create documentation that limits your claim months later. Some specific guidance:

Do not estimate the total loss value on day one. You do not know the full scope yet, and any number you quote becomes a reference point adjusters will use to cap the settlement. When asked "how much do you think the damage is?", the correct answer is: "I haven't had a chance to fully assess it. The adjuster can document it during the inspection."

Do not agree to a recorded statement the same day you report. You have the right to request time before giving a formal statement, and you should use it. Read your policy's conditions section, note your duties after loss, and understand what you are obligated to provide before you provide it. If the insurer insists on same-day recording, state your understanding that you are complying under the policy's cooperation requirement and that you reserve all rights to supplement your statement as the scope of damage becomes clearer.

Temporary Repairs: What Your Policy Requires

Your homeowners policy almost certainly contains a provision requiring you to make reasonable temporary repairs to protect your property from further damage. Boarding up broken windows, placing tarps over damaged roofs, and removing standing water fall into this category. These are not optional — failure to mitigate can give the insurer grounds to deny subsequent damage as preventable.

Keep every receipt for temporary repair costs. These expenses are reimbursable under most policies as part of the loss — they reduce the insurer's ultimate cost by preventing additional damage. Document the temporary repairs with photographs before, during, and after. Write down the dates, the costs, and who performed the work.

Do not make permanent repairs until after the adjuster inspection. If you replace a damaged section of wall before the adjuster documents it, you may face a dispute about whether the damage existed at all. Temporary fixes are fine and required. Permanent restoration should wait for the inspection and, ideally, for you to have a copy of the adjuster's scope of loss document.

The Biggest Mistake: Throwing Away Damaged Property

Do not throw away damaged personal property before the adjuster has inspected it. This is the single most common irreversible error we see. After a fire, the natural impulse is to clear out the ash and debris as quickly as possible. After a flood, the immediate priority seems to be removing water-logged items. Those impulses are understandable but costly.

Insurance adjusters need to see damaged property to document replacement value. A 55-inch television submerged in floodwater is worth $1,200 on your claim. A verbal description of a television that was thrown out before the inspection is worth whatever the adjuster decides it was worth — which may be substantially less. Items that smell of smoke or mold can be set aside in a designated area; they do not need to stay inside the house. But keep them until the inspection is complete.

If you absolutely must dispose of items due to health or safety reasons (biological contamination, structural debris), photograph everything first and compile a written list with approximate purchase dates and values. Many adjusters will accept photographic evidence of disposed items; none will accept an undocumented verbal list alone.

Additional Living Expenses: Start the Clock Immediately

If your home is uninhabitable, your homeowners policy's Additional Living Expense (ALE) coverage applies from the day the home became uninhabitable — not from the day you formally requested it. Keep every receipt from the moment you are displaced: hotel stays, restaurant meals above your normal food budget, laundry services, storage unit rentals, and mileage if your displacement requires substantially longer commutes.

ALE covers the increased cost of living caused by displacement — not all living expenses. If you normally spend $600 per month on groceries and now spend $900 because you cannot cook, the $300 difference is reimbursable. Your normal grocery budget is not. Track both your current expenses and your pre-disaster baseline to calculate the delta accurately.

Many policies cap ALE at 20–30% of the dwelling coverage limit and have a time limit of 12–24 months. For a $400,000 dwelling policy, that might be $80,000–$120,000 over 12 months — enough for most displacement situations if you plan carefully. The cap is easy to exhaust in extended rebuilds if you are not tracking it from day one.

Day 2–3: Build Your Team Before You Need It

The 72-hour window is the best time to identify the professionals you may need later: a recovery advocate, a licensed contractor, a public adjuster if the damage is significant, and an insurance attorney on standby for escalation. Most of these professionals are overwhelmed in the weeks after a major declared disaster. Getting on their calendars early matters.

Be wary of contractors who arrive uninvited at your door in the days after a declared disaster. "Storm chaser" contractors follow disaster declarations and use high-pressure tactics to get signatures on repair contracts before insurance adjuster inspections are complete. Signing a repair contract with an assignment of benefits clause before you have a settlement offer transfers your rights under the policy to the contractor — and creates significant complications if you later dispute the settlement.

Get three independent contractor bids before selecting anyone for major repair work. Compare those bids against the adjuster's repair estimate once you receive it. Significant discrepancies between contractor bids and the insurer's scope of loss are common and worth investigating — they often reveal missed items that support a supplemental claim.

A Simple 72-Hour Summary

Hours 0–6: Confirm safety. Photograph everything before moving anything. Backup documentation to the cloud. Hours 6–12: Report loss to insurer, check for disaster declaration, notify mortgage servicer. Hours 12–24: Make temporary repairs, keep every receipt, do not discard damaged property. Hours 24–48: Check FEMA registration deadline, begin FEMA IA application if applicable. Hours 48–72: Get three contractor bids, identify recovery advocate, schedule adjuster appointment, do not sign any contractor assignment-of-benefits agreements.

What does not belong on this list: accepting an initial settlement offer, signing a full release, making permanent repairs, or giving a recorded statement without reviewing your policy first. Those actions can wait. The documentation and program deadlines cannot.