Storm season
Hurricanes are part of life on this coast. Preparation is what turns chaos into a plan, and the plan has four parts, only one of which happens while the wind is blowing. The money lives in the last two, which is the part most storm checklists stop before.
Every institution named on this page was checked against its own site on 22 August 2026. We are not an emergency management agency and nothing here is a substitute for the instructions your county or parish gives during an actual storm.
The three numbers to find while the map is empty
All three take one phone call or one lookup, and none of them can be done once a storm is named. Do them in spring.
Your wind or hurricane deductible, in dollars
On most coastal policies this is a percentage of the dwelling limit, not a flat amount, and it applies separately from your ordinary deductible. A 2 percent hurricane deductible on a $400,000 dwelling limit is $8,000 out of your pocket before the policy pays anything. The percentage and the limit are both on your declarations page. Multiply them, write the answer down, and you have the number that decides what a claim is actually worth.
Your declarations page is the authority. Your agent, or your state insurance department, will read it with you.
Whether you have flood coverage at all, and when it starts
A standard homeowners policy generally does not cover flood. A new flood policy generally takes 30 days to take effect, which is why hurricane prep on this site starts on May 1 rather than June 1. The rule, its four exceptions and how to look up your flood zone by address are on their own page.
Checked against FEMA's FloodSmart pages.
Your evacuation zone
Evacuation zones are set by state and county emergency management, not by FEMA and not by your insurer, and they are not the same thing as a flood zone. Yours is a letter or a number, and knowing it is the difference between leaving on an instruction and leaving on a guess. Find it before you need it:
The other job for a calm day is proof of what you own. Photograph or film every room, open the closets and the cupboards, and get the serial numbers off anything expensive. Keep it somewhere that is not in the house: a cloud folder, or emailed to yourself. An adjuster cannot pay for what nobody can show existed.
The one part nobody can paper over
Everything above exists to make this part shorter and simpler. Once a storm is named, the decisions belong to the people with the radar.
- The forecast comes from one place. The National Hurricane Center issues the watches, warnings and the cone, and everything you see on television is derived from it. nhc.noaa.gov
- The evacuation order comes from a different place. Your county or parish emergency management issues it, by zone, and it is the instruction that matters. The forecast tells you what the storm is doing; your county tells you what you should do.
- Water is what kills people, not wind. NHC publishes storm surge maps and warnings separately from the wind forecast, because surge reaches places the wind map does not suggest. The national storm surge hazard map
- If you are told to go, go early. The general preparedness guidance, including what to take and what to do if you cannot leave, is at ready.gov/hurricanes.
Photograph everything before you clean up anything
This is the hour that decides what gets paid, and the instinct to start dragging ruined carpet to the kerb is the instinct that costs money.
- Document before you touch. Photograph and film every damaged room and the whole exterior before anything is moved or thrown out. Wide shots to establish the room, then close-ups of each item.
- Record the cause of each thing, not just the damage. Wind and flood are different policies with different deductibles, and after a storm the cause of each piece of damage decides which one pays. "Ceiling stained, water came through the roof" and "carpet ruined, water came in under the door" go to two different claims.
- Make emergency repairs, and keep the receipts. Policies generally require you to prevent further damage. Tarping a roof is your job; a permanent repair before the adjuster has seen it is not.
- Keep a log of every call. Date, who you spoke to, what they said, and what they promised. This is the single most useful thing a homeowner does after a storm and almost nobody does it.
Be careful who knocks. Contractors follow landfalls. Check a licence before signing anything, and be wary of any agreement that hands your insurance claim to someone else to manage. Your state insurance department and licensing board are the places to check, and both are free.
The phase that decides what actually gets paid
- Wind and flood are two separate claims, usually with two separate companies, two deductibles and two adjusters. A flood claim goes to your NFIP or private flood insurer: how to start a flood claim and their claims checklist.
- There are deadlines, and they are in your policy. Notice periods and proof-of-loss deadlines vary by policy and by state, and they are enforceable. Read yours, and if a deadline is close, ask your insurer in writing for an extension rather than letting it pass.
- Your state insurance department is free, and it is on your side of the table. If a claim stalls or is denied and you think that is wrong, they take complaints and they mediate. They are listed on the wind mitigation page, state by state, because they are the same five departments.
- A federal disaster declaration is a separate thing from insurance. If one is issued for your county, individual assistance is applied for at disasterassistance.gov. It is not a substitute for a claim and it does not replace what a policy would have paid.
Rebuilding is the cheapest moment to build back stronger. Four of the five Gulf states put up to $10,000 toward a roof rebuilt to a stronger standard, and the roof is already coming off. The programs, state by state →
All of it, in blanks you fill in while it is calm
Everything above is the shape of the thing. The binder is the version you write in: the countdown, the shutdown sequence, nine room by room inventory sheets, the supply calculator, and the damage and claim logs with a column for cause. Thirty-three pages, mostly blank, because the filling in is the point.
The Storm Season Binder
$16.99one time, use it every season
Instant download · Two PDFs · 1,876 fillable fields
Want the full contents first? See what's inside on the shop page.
Free while you decide: the flood insurance 30-day rule, wind mitigation discounts, and the free maintenance calendar with the May insurance task built in.