Regular home insurance does not cover flood from the outside at all. If you flood from your plumbing that is usually covered. If you have water damage from the wind breaking through a window or ripping your roof off and you have windstorm insurance in your policy, then that water damage is covered. If it floods from rising or sitting waters from the ground because of flash flooding or water not being able to drain away from your house fast enough from heavy rains that is very specifically “flood insurance” and is a completely separate policy not covered in your regular home insurance.

For details of what your insurance covers you need to ask your particular insurer about your policy. As far as I know my flood insurance doesn’t cover living somewhere else after a flood. I’m pretty sure my homeowners does for after certain events.

To be clear, when people refer to flood insurance they specifically are talking about flooding from the outside unless otherwise specified.

@JLeslie Is right. If you don’t have flood insurance you are screwed in the event of a flood. Home owners is not going to cover anything.

For the typical home insurance policy, @JLeslie and @Adirondackwannabe are absolutely right, unless you’ve had additional clauses or riders included specifically covering flood.

You can call your insurance directly for free and have them clarify what is covered. In FL you want to for sure have windstorm and I say no matter where you live people should buy flood insurance. Flood insurance is very cheap if you live in an X zone.

You can’t expect it from the insurance company because it is out of their policy…