What’s the Difference Between Wind and Flood Damage Coverage in Louisiana?

Wind or Flood? Understanding the Insurance Difference After a Hurricane in Louisiana

In the aftermath of a Louisiana hurricane, a single question can determine your entire financial future: Was the damage caused by wind or by flood? To a homeowner standing in a ruined living room, the distinction seems absurd. The hurricane brought the storm, the storm destroyed the house. It should be that simple.

Unfortunately, in the world of insurance, it is never that simple. The difference between wind and flood damage is the most critical, contentious, and frequently used reason for insurers to underpay or outright deny hurricane claims. Understanding this distinction is your first line of defense against the tactics that can leave your family without the funds to rebuild.

This is more than just semantics; it’s a contractual line in the sand that insurers will not hesitate to use against you. The attorneys in the Bloom Legal Network have fought and won this exact battle for countless homeowners, and they can help you navigate this complex and crucial issue.

Defining the Damage: The Insurer’s Playbook

Insurance companies have very specific, narrow definitions for these two types of damage.

What is Considered Wind Damage?

Your standard homeowners (HO-3) policy covers damage caused directly by wind or wind-driven rain. This includes:

• Direct Force of Wind: Shingles torn from your roof, siding ripped from your walls, windows broken by flying debris, or your garage door blowing in.
• Wind-Driven Rain: Once the wind has created an opening (like a hole in the roof), any rain that enters through that opening and causes interior damage is typically covered.
• Fallen Trees: If a tree is toppled by wind and damages your home or another insured structure, that is considered wind damage.

Insurers will look for evidence that the wind “acted first” to cause the damage. This is a key point for homeowners across Southeast Louisiana.

What is Considered Flood Damage?

This is where most policyholders are caught by surprise. Your standard homeowners policy does not cover flood damage. Flood damage is defined as damage from rising waters that enter your home from the ground up. This includes:

• Storm Surge: The wall of water pushed ashore by a hurricane. This is a primary cause of catastrophic loss in coastal areas like St. Charles Parish and parts of Jefferson Parish.
• Overflow of Waterways: Rivers, lakes, or canals overflowing their banks due to heavy rain.
• Pooling of Surface Water: When heavy rainfall accumulates on the ground and seeps or flows into your home under the doorways or through the foundation.

For flood damage coverage, you must have a separate policy, usually from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) or a private flood insurer.

The Million-Dollar Problem: Concurrent Causation

What happens when your home in Metairie is hit by 120-mph winds and six feet of storm surge? You have damage from both wind and water, often at the same time. This is where the legal battle truly begins.

Insurers will often point to an “Anti-Concurrent Causation” (ACC) clause in your policy. This clause essentially states that if a covered loss (wind) and a non-covered loss (flood) contribute to the damage, they can exclude coverage for all of it, even the parts clearly caused by wind. They will argue: “We can’t tell where the wind damage stops and the flood damage begins, so we’re not covering any of it.”

This is an aggressive tactic used to intimidate homeowners into accepting a tiny settlement or walking away with nothing.

Challenging an ACC clause requires deep knowledge of Louisiana insurance law and precedent. This is not a fight to take on alone. Let Bloom Legal Network connect you with a lawyer who knows how to fight back against this specific exclusion.

How Insurers Use This Distinction Against You

An adjuster’s first job is to determine the “proximate cause” of the damage. They will look for a “water line” on your walls to argue everything below it is flood damage. They might blame a collapsed wall on the pressure of floodwaters, even if it was first weakened by hurricane-force winds.

They may try to attribute all interior damage to flooding, even if your roof was clearly compromised first, allowing hours of wind-driven rain to pour in. This is a common issue for homeowners from the Northshore of St. Tammany Parish to the West Bank of New Orleans.

If you have both a homeowners and a flood policy, this can lead to a nightmare scenario where the two companies point fingers at each other, each claiming the other is responsible for paying. While they argue, you are left waiting.

You Need an Advocate on Your Side

You cannot trust your insurance company to make a fair determination between wind and flood damage. Their financial incentive is to attribute as much damage as possible to the cause they don’t cover.

To fight back, you need your own team of experts. A skilled hurricane claims attorney can:

• Engage Engineers and Meteorologists: Hire independent experts to analyze the storm’s path and the physical evidence to prove what damage was caused by wind.
• Scrutinize Your Policies: Conduct a detailed review of both your homeowners and flood policies to identify every avenue for coverage.
• Manage All Communications: Handle the complex, often contentious, negotiations with multiple insurance companies.
• Build a Case for Litigation: Prepare to take the insurers to court if they refuse to offer a fair settlement.

Don’t let your financial recovery be denied over a definition. The attorneys within the Bloom Legal Network are prepared to fight for a just assessment of your damages.

📞 Call 504-599-9997 

📧 Send an email to info@bloomlegal.com

Contact us to be connected with a legal professional who can protect you from the insurance company’s playbook and fight for the full value of your claim.