Fire & Smoke Damage Claims
Fire or smoke damage to your home or business? We scope every affected area and fight for full restoration.
What we document and recover.
Fire damage claims involve multiple layers of loss that carriers often underscope: structural damage, smoke infiltration throughout unburned areas, soot contamination of HVAC systems, odor remediation, contents losses, and additional living expenses.
We document all direct and secondary damage (including smoke damage in areas the fire never reached) and ensure your claim includes the full cost of professional restoration, not just visible burn damage.
- Structural fire and char damage
- Smoke and soot throughout the property
- HVAC contamination and cleaning
- Contents inventory and valuation
- Odor remediation scope
- Temporary housing (ALE) during repairs
- Code-required upgrades during rebuild
Florida's building code requires bringing repaired structures up to current code, a cost carriers frequently exclude from initial offers. Our scopes include code-upgrade line items so you're not absorbing those costs out of pocket during rebuilding.
Fire is a covered peril on essentially every homeowners policy, along with the resulting smoke, soot, and the water used to put it out. The dispute is scope, not coverage: carriers underscope smoke contamination, odor, HVAC, contents, and the ordinance-or-law (code upgrade) costs your policy may cover. We add those line items so you're not paying them out of pocket during the rebuild.
Does homeowners insurance cover fire and smoke damage?
Yes. Fire is a covered peril on essentially every homeowners policy, and that coverage extends to smoke, soot, and the water used to put the fire out. The dispute is almost never whether fire is covered; it's the scope. Carriers tend to pay for what burned and underscope the smoke contamination, odor, HVAC, contents, and code-upgrade costs that make up most of a real fire loss.
Common causes of fire & smoke damage
- Kitchen and cooking fires
- Electrical, wiring, and appliance fires
- Lightning strikes (common in summer storm season)
- Smoke and soot spreading into rooms the fire never reached
- HVAC systems pulling soot and odor through the whole house
- Water and chemical damage from firefighting and extinguishers
How the fire & smoke claim process works
From the day of the loss to the final payment, here's how we move a fire & smoke claim, and where most of the recovery is won.
- Make the property safeDon't re-enter until the fire department clears it. Secure and board up openings to prevent weather and theft losses on top of the fire.
- Document before anything is cleanedSmoke and soot are evidence. Photograph every room, including areas away from the burn, before any cleaning or demolition begins.
- Start the contents inventoryBuild a room-by-room list of damaged and destroyed belongings with descriptions and values. This is where contents claims are won or lost.
- Secure ALEIf the home is unlivable, your policy's additional-living-expense coverage pays for temporary housing. Keep every receipt.
- We scope the full lossStructure, smoke contamination throughout, HVAC cleaning, odor remediation, contents, and code upgrades all go on the estimate, not just visible char.
- File and meet the adjusterWe submit the documented claim and meet the carrier's adjuster on site so the smoke and odor scope they tend to skip is on the record.
- NegotiateWe challenge under-scoped smoke remediation, lowball contents valuations, and excluded code upgrades, invoking appraisal when needed.
- Settle and rebuildWe confirm recoverable depreciation and code-upgrade costs are released so the rebuild is fully funded.
Why insurers underpay fire & smoke claims
- Smoke damage underscoped. Carriers pay for the burned area and ignore smoke and soot in rooms the fire never touched. We document the full contamination footprint.
- Code upgrades excluded. Local building code may require upgrades during the rebuild. Carriers leave these off; we add the ordinance-or-law line items the policy covers.
- Lowball contents valuation. Damaged belongings get valued at pennies on the dollar. We build a detailed inventory with proper replacement values.
- HVAC and odor skipped. Soot pulled through the air handler and lingering odor require professional remediation that quick estimates omit.
- ALE shortchanged. Temporary-housing reimbursement gets capped too low or cut off early. We document what comparable housing actually costs.
Signs your fire & smoke settlement is too low
- The estimate only covers the visibly burned area
- Smoke, soot, and odor remediation are missing or minimized
- Your contents were valued far below replacement cost
- HVAC cleaning or replacement was left off
- Code-required upgrades for the rebuild weren't included
- ALE was denied or cut off while your home is still unlivable
If any of these match your claim, it's worth a free second look. A complete, well-documented scope is what reverses a lowball offer.
What to document after fire & smoke damage
- Photos and video of every room, including smoke and soot away from the burn
- The fire department or incident report
- A room-by-room contents inventory with values
- Receipts for temporary housing and emergency expenses
- Board-up and securing invoices
- A licensed contractor's repair and rebuild estimate
- Your policy declarations page
- All correspondence and the carrier's adjuster report
How long do you have to file a fire & smoke claim?
Filing deadlines depend on your state and your policy. Here's how the time limits work where we're licensed.
Florida
For policies effective on or after December 16, 2022, you generally have one year from the date of loss to report a new claim and 18 months to file a supplemental claim (Fla. Stat. § 627.70132). Policies effective before that date may have longer windows. Either way, evidence fades fast after a loss, so the sooner the damage is documented, the stronger the claim.
More detail: Florida insurance claim deadlines explained.
South Carolina
You generally have three years to file suit on a property insurance policy (S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530), but your policy's own notice and proof-of-loss deadlines are usually much shorter and control how quickly you must act. Because the deadline that matters is most often the one written into your policy, report and document your loss as early as you can. We'll review the specific deadlines that apply to your claim.
More detail: the South Carolina claims guide.
This is general information, not legal advice. Filing deadlines depend on your state, your policy's effective date, and its terms. Talk to a licensed adjuster about your specific claim.
How Vanguard handles fire & smoke claims
A licensed public adjuster handles your file start to finish: we inspect the property, build a line-item scope to the standard the carrier demands, file or re-open the claim, meet the carrier's field adjuster on site, and negotiate, invoking the policy's appraisal clause when they won't move.
We work on contingency. There are no upfront fees; the fee comes out of what we actually recover for you, and only after the carrier pays. If we don't recover, you don't pay. The fee for your claim is set out in the written contingency agreement before you sign.
New to this? Start with what a public adjuster does, or see what a public adjuster costs.
Fire & Smoke Damage claim FAQ
The storm passes. The fight for your payout begins.
We document the full loss and stand between you and the insurance company.
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