Category: Water Damage

Short answer: it depends on the water’s origin. Homeowners policies cover sudden, internal, accidental water damage but exclude most flooding from external sources. For that you need a separate flood insurance policy.

Here’s how to tell the difference — and what to do when you find standing water in your basement.

Typically covered by your standard homeowners policy

• Burst pipe (sudden and accidental)
• Water heater rupture
• Appliance leak (dishwasher, washing machine, refrigerator ice maker)
• Bathroom supply line failure or toilet overflow
• Roof leak from storm damage (the roof damage is the covered peril; the interior water damage follows)
• HVAC condensate line failure

Typically NOT covered by standard homeowners (you need flood insurance)

• Rising external floodwater (river flooding, creek overflow, flash flood)
• Groundwater seeping up through basement slab
• Surface water entering from outside (heavy rain overwhelming yard grading)
• Sewer backup (UNLESS you have a sewer/sump endorsement — which many AR policies offer but don’t automatically include)
• Gradual leaks you ignored for months

The sewer-backup gap most Arkansas homeowners don’t know about

Sewer backup is one of the most expensive water damage events possible because it’s Category 3 “black water” — contaminated with bacteria and requires more aggressive remediation than clean-water loss. And yet standard homeowners policies exclude it by default. Most insurers offer a sewer/sump endorsement for $30-$80 a year that adds $5,000-$25,000 of coverage for this specific scenario. If you have a basement in Arkansas and don’t have this endorsement, call your agent tomorrow.

What actually happens when water shows up in your basement

Don’t wait to figure out the insurance question before you start mitigating. Your policy requires you to stop further damage regardless of whether the claim ends up covered. Call SteamPro first: (870) 793-4834. We’ll extract the water, document everything, and help identify the source — which is what the insurance determination hinges on.

Then call your insurance. Describe what you see factually: “There’s 3 inches of water in the basement, it’s clear water, I think it’s from the water heater that’s leaking” — versus “The yard was flooded during the storm and water came in through the basement window.” Those are two completely different claims.

Why you still want restoration even if not covered

Here’s what homeowners often miss: even if the water itself isn’t covered, secondary damage often is. Example: an uncovered flood event damages your drywall, which later develops mold. The mold remediation may be covered even though the flood wasn’t — because mold is a separate peril in many policies. The documentation your restoration company creates on day one is what makes that kind of coverage argument possible later.

Also: the faster you dry the structure, the less damage compounds. A properly dried basement after a flood event may be fine. An undried basement becomes a mold and structural-rot problem that costs 10x more to fix six months later.

Local advice

If you’re in a flood-prone part of North Central Arkansas — along the White River, the North Fork, or Lake Norfork shoreline — flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is a worthwhile investment. Annual premium is often $400-$1,200 depending on zone, and the coverage is completely separate from your regular homeowners policy. FEMA’s flood map tool shows whether you’re in a Special Flood Hazard Area.

For any water damage, call SteamPro at (870) 793-4834. We serve Batesville, Mountain Home, and the surrounding North Central Arkansas area — 24/7.

If you’ve just discovered a burst pipe, the order of operations is simple: shut off the water, shut off the power, call us. Here are the details.

Step 1 — Shut off the main water valve

Every house has a main shutoff. Find yours BEFORE you need it — most are located:

• In a basement or crawl space near the front foundation wall
• Outside near the water meter (look for a concrete box in the yard)
• In a utility room or laundry
• Near the water heater

It’s usually a lever handle or a round handle. Lever: turn it 90 degrees so it’s perpendicular to the pipe. Round: turn clockwise until it stops. You’ll hear the flow stop in the walls within seconds.

Step 2 — Kill power to the affected rooms

If water has reached outlets, wall cavities, or the ceiling, water and electricity are now mixing inside your house. Go to your breaker panel and flip the breakers for the affected rooms. Don’t wade into standing water to reach an outlet or appliance until that room’s breaker is off.

Step 3 — Drain the remaining water from the lines

After the main is shut off, open all faucets in the house — kitchen, bathrooms, basement — and flush toilets. This drains the pressurized water still sitting in the pipes. If the break is at a high point in the plumbing, this can significantly reduce how much more water pours out of the break.

Step 4 — Call a restoration company (not just a plumber)

A plumber fixes the pipe. A restoration company deals with the water that’s already in the house. You need both — and you need them in the right order. The plumber first, to seal the break. Then the restoration crew, who will extract the standing water, pull wet baseboards, pull carpet pad if saturated, and run commercial dehumidifiers and air movers for 3-5 days until moisture readings are back to normal.

If you skip the restoration step and just “let it dry on its own,” you’re setting yourself up for mold in the walls, warped hardwood, and subfloor rot within 30-60 days. In Arkansas humidity, it doesn’t take long.

What makes Arkansas winter pipe breaks worse than other regions

Most Arkansas houses aren’t built for 5°F. Pipe insulation in older homes is often minimal, crawl spaces are often uninsulated, and exterior walls may have pipes running through them that never get proper heat in extreme cold. When the freeze hits, pipes in exterior walls and crawl spaces freeze first. The water expands as it freezes, splitting the pipe. You don’t notice it during the freeze (because the ice plug prevents flow). You notice it when the thaw comes — often 24-48 hours later, when suddenly water is pouring out somewhere unexpected.

This is why the “second day after the freeze” is actually our busiest day for water damage calls. The freeze happens, the break happens, but the damage only shows up when the temperature climbs back above freezing and the ice plug melts.

Prevention for next winter

• Find your main shutoff and show everyone in the household — most burst pipes cause 10× more damage because nobody could find the shutoff fast enough.
• Insulate pipes in crawl spaces and exterior walls — foam pipe insulation from the hardware store costs $3 per section.
• Drip faucets during hard freezes — moving water doesn’t freeze as easily. Open the tap to a pencil-thick stream on the coldest nights.
• Open kitchen and bathroom cabinets during freeze events so house heat reaches the pipes under sinks.
• Disconnect outside hoses before the first freeze each year. Water trapped in a connected hose can back up into the spigot and split it.

Water damage already happened? Call SteamPro at (870) 793-4834. We’re on-site fast across Batesville, Mountain Home, and North Central Arkansas — 24/7, every day of the year.

If you’re in the middle of a water loss right now, the most important call isn’t your insurance company — it’s us: (870) 793-4834. We extract, dry, and document the damage in a way that makes your insurance claim move fast, and we can bill your carrier directly. Serving Batesville, Mountain Home, and all of North Central Arkansas.

If the water is already under control and you’re trying to sort out the insurance side, here’s the exact process we walk customers through — the one that actually gets claims approved without a fight.

Step 1 — Stop the source and mitigate further damage (legally required)

Your homeowners policy requires you to take “reasonable steps” to stop further damage. This is not optional — if you leave standing water for three days because you’re waiting on an adjuster, the insurance company can legitimately deny the coverage on whatever additional damage happened during that delay. Stop the water, extract what you can, open windows, and if you can’t handle it yourself, call a professional restoration company to start mitigation. That’s literally the legal standard your policy holds you to.

Step 2 — Photograph EVERYTHING before you move or clean anything

This is the step homeowners regret skipping. Before you move a single wet item, before you mop up anything, take photos and video from multiple angles. Capture:

• The water source (the burst pipe, overflow, or leak point)
• The path the water took (under doors, across carpet, down walls)
• Standing water at its highest level
• Every affected room from multiple angles
• Close-ups of damaged furniture, flooring, and drywall
• Personal items that were damaged — clothes, books, electronics
• Wide shots that show the whole room

Video walk-throughs with narration (“This is the hallway — you can see water has come under the bedroom door”) are gold for adjusters. Do this BEFORE any cleanup begins.

Step 3 — Call your insurance company and get a claim number

Now call your insurer. Report the loss, get a claim number (write it down — you’ll need it for everything), and ask three specific questions:

• “Am I covered for water damage from this specific cause?” (Sudden/accidental water damage is typically covered; flood from rising external water usually isn’t — that requires separate flood insurance.)
• “What’s my deductible on this claim?”
• “Can my restoration company bill you directly?” — the answer is almost always yes, and it means you don’t have to front the money for the mitigation.

Step 4 — Call a restoration company BEFORE the adjuster visits

Here’s a mistake we see all the time: homeowners wait for the insurance adjuster to come out before starting mitigation. That delay costs you thousands in additional damage — and your policy requires you to mitigate. By the time the adjuster arrives, professional restoration should already be in progress (extraction, drying equipment running, documentation in hand). The adjuster’s job is to approve what’s needed, not to supervise what work happens.

SteamPro can be on-site within the hour across Batesville and Mountain Home. We start the mitigation, document the scope, and coordinate directly with your adjuster when they arrive — or with a phone call if they can’t come in person. (870) 793-4834.

Step 5 — Save every receipt and log every cost

Most homeowners policies include “loss of use” / “additional living expenses” coverage for when your home isn’t livable during restoration. This reimburses hotel stays, extra meals out, laundry, pet boarding — any extra expenses you incur because the house isn’t usable. But only if you document everything. Keep a folder (paper or digital) with every receipt from the moment the loss happened.

Step 6 — Let the restoration company work directly with the adjuster

A restoration company like SteamPro has done thousands of insurance jobs and speaks the adjuster’s language. We use the same estimating software (Xactimate) that the insurance industry uses. We can negotiate scope directly, provide the moisture readings and drying logs they need to sign off, and handle the paperwork so you don’t have to.

The difference between a homeowner trying to self-advocate and a professional restoration company advocating for the claim is often thousands of dollars — and months of back-and-forth you won’t have to do yourself.

Step 7 — Don’t sign the settlement offer until restoration is complete

Insurance companies sometimes push for a quick settlement before all the damage is visible. Hidden water damage often doesn’t show up for 30-60 days — warped flooring, buckling subfloor, mold. If you sign a settlement that says “claim closed” before the full scope is documented, you may lose the ability to reopen it for those supplemental damages later. Keep the claim open until your restoration company signs off that the structure is fully dry and stable.

The short version

Call us first at (870) 793-4834. We stop the damage, document the loss, and work directly with your insurance so you get approved fast. SteamPro has been handling insurance claims for North Central Arkansas since 1994 — Batesville, Mountain Home, Newport, Heber Springs, and surrounding areas.

If you’re reading this while water is still on your floor — stop reading and call us: (870) 793-4834. We answer 24/7 across Batesville, Mountain Home, and the surrounding North Central Arkansas area.

If you’ve already stopped the water and you’re figuring out what comes next, this is the right page to read. The first 24 hours after water damage is a narrow window — get it right and you’ll be back to normal in a few days. Get it wrong and you’re looking at mold, warped flooring, and insurance headaches a few weeks down the road.

Step 1 — Shut off the source (if you haven’t already)

Before anything else, stop more water from coming in. For plumbing leaks, shut off the main water valve — it’s usually near where the water line enters your house, in a basement, crawl space, or near the water meter. For appliance leaks (dishwasher, washing machine, water heater), turn off the dedicated shutoff valve behind or under the unit. If the water is coming from the ceiling, there’s plumbing above — turn off the main and don’t wait.

Step 2 — Kill the power to affected rooms

Water and electricity do not mix. If water has reached outlets, baseboards, or dropped through the ceiling, flip the breaker for those rooms at your electrical panel. Don’t use a shop vac, extension cord, or electric fan in standing water until the power to that area is off.

Step 3 — Document everything with photos and video

Before you move a single piece of furniture, take photos and video of the damage from every angle. Capture the water source, the affected flooring, any furniture or belongings in the water, and any signs of damage to drywall or baseboards. Your insurance adjuster will need this, and the more detailed your documentation, the faster your claim moves.

Step 4 — Move what you can

Lift rugs off wet carpet. Move upholstered furniture out of the affected area — even damp cushions can develop mold within 48 hours. Wet wood furniture should be elevated on blocks or foil to prevent staining into carpet. Pull drawers and doors open to promote airflow.

Step 5 — Call a restoration company (that would be us)

Here’s where DIY hits its limit. A wet carpet looks dry within a day, but the pad underneath and the subfloor stays wet for weeks without commercial drying equipment. That’s how mold problems start — homeowners think they handled it, and a month later they’re tearing out walls.

SteamPro runs truck-mounted water extractors and industrial-grade dehumidifiers that pull moisture out of carpet, pad, drywall, and subfloor the same way a professional drying operation would. We also coordinate directly with insurance adjusters and can bill most homeowner’s policies. No walk-in office — we come to you, 24/7, across Batesville and Mountain Home.

What we don’t recommend

Don’t rent a carpet-cleaning machine from the grocery store and try to extract the water yourself. Those machines are built for surface cleaning, not saturation. They move water around without actually pulling it out of the pad. The pad will stay wet, and you’ll be calling us in a month anyway — with a mold problem layered on top of the water damage.

Don’t wait to see if it dries on its own. Arkansas humidity keeps wet materials wet. A closed, damp room in July is a mold factory.

Call us before it gets worse

Water damage that’s handled within 24 hours is a cleanup job. Water damage that sits for a week is a restoration job. Water damage that sits for a month is a demolition job.

Call SteamPro Restoration at (870) 793-4834 — we serve the entire North Central Arkansas area including Batesville, Mountain Home, Melbourne, Mountain View, Heber Springs, and Newport. We’re here 24/7 and we work directly with your insurance.