Total loss and depreciation
This applies across all four perils: water, fire and smoke, mold, and biohazard.
These are the answered questions on total loss and depreciation. Every answer names the applicable water category, smoke residue type or peril, cites primary sources, and states plainly when the work requires a professional rather than telling you how to attempt it yourself.
How these questions are answered Link to this section
- Water is named by category. Category 1 is clean supply water; Category 2 is significantly contaminated; Category 3 is grossly contaminated, such as sewage. The category decides what gets dried and what gets removed, and it degrades with time.
- Smoke is named by residue type. Dry smoke, wet smoke, protein residue and fuel-oil soot clean differently, and which one you have depends on what burned.
- Coverage is named by peril, and for water, by whether it came from inside the building or outside it. Flood means external water and is excluded; a burst pipe is internal water and is generally covered.
What people ask here Link to this section
| Distinct questions | 6 |
|---|---|
| Phrasings they arrive under | 6 |
| Estimated monthly searches | 3,330 |
| Questions with measured volume | 2 |
| Median keyword difficulty (of 1 measured) | 45 |
| Span more than one peril | 4 |
| Cannot be answered without coverage | 6 |
Figures come from 34,453 rows of US keyword exports for water, fire and mold, reduced to 17,816 distinct questions after filtering franchise brands, out-of-scope subjects and semantic duplicates. Published as data at /data/demand.json.
Published answers Link to this section
Sources
Every source cited on this page
- T2ANSI/IICRC S700 Standard for Professional Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration — IICRC (accessed 2026-08-22)
- T1Carbon Monoxide Poisoning — CDC (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.