What should I photograph after water damage for insurance?
- Water
Photograph before you move anything. Wide shots of each affected room from the doorway, then the source, then the water line on the wall, then close-ups of damaged contents with model and serial numbers. Finish with a walkthrough video narrating what you are seeing, with the date audible. It costs nothing and it decides the claim.
The short version
- Wide to close, and finish before anything is moved.
- Capture the source and the water line — they establish cause and extent.
- Contents need model and serial numbers to be valued properly.
- Keep daily monitoring logs if drying equipment is installed.
- Discard nothing until the adjuster authorizes it.
The order, and why it is this order Link to this section
- Wide shot of each affected room from the doorway. Establishes extent, which is what gets disputed.
- The source. The failed pipe, the appliance, the ceiling opening. Establishes cause, which is what decides coverage.
- The water line on the wall. Shows how high it reached, which drives how much material comes out.
- Close-ups of damaged contents, with model and serial numbers where they exist.
- A walkthrough video with the date audible, narrating what you are seeing.
Wide to close, and all of it before anything is moved.
What to keep, beyond photographs Link to this section
- Every receipt, from the first night — hotel, meals, pet boarding, supplies, the emergency plumber
- The claim number, the adjuster’s name, and the date and time of every call
- Daily monitoring logs and moisture readings, with dates
- Every document you were asked to sign, including the ones you did not sign
Photograph the thing that decides the category Link to this section
One shot is worth more than the rest combined: whatever tells an adjuster where the water came from.
Water is graded Category 1 (clean supply water), Category 2 (significantly contaminated) or Category 3 (grossly contaminated, such as sewage), and the category decides whether porous material is dried in place or removed. It also degrades with time, so a photograph that establishes when the water arrived is evidence about the category as well as the cause.
If the water came up through a floor drain, photograph the drain. If it came from a supply line, photograph the line. That image is doing two jobs at once.
Do not throw anything away yet Link to this section
Not even things that are obviously ruined. The ruined item is the evidence for the contents claim. Wait for the adjuster to authorize disposal, and photograph it before it goes.
What this means for your claim
Two documents decide most disputed water claims, and you make both of them in the first day.
The photographs. Images taken after a room has been cleared prove far less than images taken before it was touched, and there is no way to recreate the earlier ones. This is the part people skip because it feels less urgent than moving things out of the water.
The daily monitoring log. If a contractor installs air movers and dehumidifiers, someone should return each day to take moisture readings and record them. Those logs are how anyone later establishes that the equipment was necessary, that it was working, and for how long — which is exactly what gets disputed on the invoice.
Equipment running with no monitoring log is a red flag on this site, and it is also a hole in your own evidence.
Common mistakes
- Moving or discarding anything before photographing it.
- Photographing only the damage, not the source. Cause is half the claim.
- Skipping serial numbers, which is what turns a contents list into a valuation.
- Letting equipment run for days with nobody recording moisture readings.
Common follow-up questions
Do I need professional photographs?
No. A phone is fine. What matters is that they were taken before anything moved, that they show cause as well as damage, and that the timestamps are intact.
What if I already moved things?
Photograph now anyway, and write down what you moved and when. An imperfect record made honestly is far better than none, and adjusters deal with this constantly.
Sources
Every source cited on this page
- T2ANSI/IICRC S500 Standard for Professional Water Damage Restoration — IICRC (accessed 2026-08-22)
- T1A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture and Your Home — US EPA (accessed 2026-08-22)
- T1Policy Terms and Coverage — FEMA / NFIP (accessed 2026-08-22)
- T1State insurance departments (directory) — NAIC (accessed 2026-08-22)
This page is general information, not insurance, legal or medical advice. Your policy governs your claim. Nothing here assesses your specific loss.