Wind-driven rain or flooding? Can you tell the difference in damaged equipment?

Flooding or Wind-Driven Rain?

How Can You Tell?

Most commercial insurance policies do not cover flood damage, but they typically do cover wind-driven rain.

As an adjuster, how will you tell if water damage was caused by flooding or wind-driven rain this hurricane season?

Start with these basic questions.

Does the equipment design allow for wind-driven rain to permeate?

Do you see louvered openings, exterior gaps, or cooling/ventilation fans where rain could enter the equipment?
Is equipment positioned in an area that is prone to wind-driven rain?

What interior areas of the equipment were affected?

Did water enter into fully enclosed areas such as cabinets?
Wind-driven rain must have an entry point into the equipment to actually cause the damage. If a system is fully enclosed and sealed, wind-driven rain would not permeate the system or be the cause of the damage.

Are components such as transformers saturated?
Components such as power transformers are designed to be resistant to wind-driven water but are not resistant to being submerged. If components such as power transformers have failed due to extensive water contamination, there is a high likelihood that they were submerged in a flood rather than sprayed with water as a result of wind-driven rain.

What signs of water are visible within the equipment?

Is there pooling of water present in interior equipment spaces?
Some devices, such as hard drives, are tightly sealed because a single particle of dust can cause catastrophic damage. If a sealed device is found to have interior water pooling, we must conclude that it was submerged in a flood rather than sprayed by wind-driven rain.

Are defined flood lines visible?
During the internal inspection of equipment, water lines should not be present. The presence of water lines indicates submersion rather than wind-driven rain.

How has the dust inside the equipment been affected?
Look to see whether the dust is dotted, fully flattened, or showing a clear demarcation line. These signs can reveal whether equipment was sprayed with rain or submerged.

Still not sure? TechLoss is happy to answer all of your questions.