CLAIMS

How long a homeowners claim takes, and the clocks the insurer must meet

A routine claim often settles in a few weeks, but the law sets no single speed. In the four places read for this page, the insurer must acknowledge the claim within 7 to 15 days and decide it within 15 business days to 60 days of the trigger, depending on the state and on what starts the count. Payment follows within 5 business days to 30 days of agreement in New York and California, and inside Florida's 60. Those clocks cover the insurer's responses, not the repairs. Washington rewrote its claim-handling text effective October 18, 2026, so older web advice about its deadlines is already out of date.

General information, not legal advice. Statutes and regulations below were read on October 23, 2026; your policy and your state's current rules control. Texas's clocks are covered on the deadlines page and not repeated here. Flood insurance is separate from a homeowners policy.

A typical answer, and why a deadline is a different thing

Consumer pages that answer this question give a range: a couple of weeks for a small claim, longer after a storm that floods the adjuster pool with files, months for a large fire or a contested loss. That is a description of what usually happens. A deadline is something an insurer can be cited for missing, and the two diverge in the cases where a reader most needs to know. When a claim has gone quiet for three weeks, "typical" cannot tell you whether you are being treated within the rules. The regulations can.

There is a second, more practical reason to learn them. A claim is a sequence of handoffs: you report, the insurer acknowledges, someone inspects, someone prices, a decision is made, a check is issued, a lender may add its own steps. Each handoff has its own rule in the states read here, and the rules differ in what starts the count. Knowing which date starts which clock turns a vague complaint into a dated one.

Five clocks, four rulebooks

Sources: Fla. Stat. 627.70131(1), (3), (7); 10 CCR 2695.5(b), (e) and 2695.7(b), (c), (h); 11 NYCRR 216.4(a) and 216.6(c), (f); WAC 284-30-360(1), 284-30-370(1) and 284-30-380(1), (3), all as read on the date above. The gaps in the table are gaps in what we read, not findings that no rule exists. A "calendar day" counts weekends, and a "business day" generally does not; we ignored holidays in the calendar below.

One claim, four calendars

Take an invented claim and run it through each rulebook. A homeowner reports hail damage on Monday, March 1, 2027, and sends the insurer a proof of loss on Friday, March 5. Under New York's rule the proof of loss is complete, with everything the insurer asked for, on Friday, March 12. The insurer agrees to pay on Tuesday, April 6, in the New York case, and accepts on Thursday, April 1, in the California case. Nothing else is assumed.

The spread is the point. A homeowner in Washington is owed a decision a full month before a homeowner in Florida, on the same report date, and a New York insurer that has all the paperwork on March 12 has until April 2. None of these is better or worse in the abstract; they reflect different drafting choices about what to measure from. What you can do with the table is check your own dates. If you are two weeks past a clock on your state's list, you have a precise complaint, and the regulator's complaint form asks for exactly this kind of date.

What Washington changed on October 18, 2026

Washington's claim-handling sections were amended by an order filed August 18, 2026, WSR 26-17-089, effective October 18, 2026, five days before we read it. The legislature's site displays both the old text, marked effective until that date, and the new text, which lets the two be compared section by section. The biggest change is in WAC 284-30-380, the decision clock. The old text gave the insurer fifteen working days after receipt of fully completed and executed proofs of loss to tell a first-party claimant whether the claim was accepted or denied. The new text gives 30 calendar days after receipt of the notification of claim. The starting event moved from the claimant's paperwork to the claim report, and the unit moved from working days to calendar days.

That shift matters most when the paperwork is slow. Take the invented claim from the calendar above, reported on March 1. Under the old text, a proof of loss completed on March 12 started fifteen working days that ended on April 2, as the New York row shows for a similar count. A proof of loss completed on Friday, April 9 would have moved the decision date to April 30. Under the new text the date is March 31 in both cases, because the clock no longer waits for the proof of loss. The old and new texts both required an insurer that needed more time to say so in writing, but the old schedule was fifteen working days from proofs of loss, then a further notice within 45 days of the initial notification, then notices every thirty days. The new one is a notice within 30 calendar days of the claim notification, then every 30 calendar days.

Other changes are smaller. In WAC 284-30-360 the acknowledgment count for an individual policy is unchanged at ten days, and group claims stay at fifteen; the difference in subsection (1) is wording, from working days to business days. The change with a number attached is subsection (2): an insurer's response to a commissioner's complaint inquiry went from fifteen working days to 10 business days. The duty to provide claim forms, instructions and reasonable assistance was already in the old text, subsection (4), and the new subsection (4) restates it. WAC 284-30-370 keeps the 30-day investigation, which could always be extended where it could not reasonably be completed in that time, and attaches real content to the extension. The insurer must now say in writing, within 30 calendar days, why it cannot finish, and send a further notice every 30 days that summarizes decisions or actions substantially related to the disposition of the claim, including the amount of loss, the retention of service providers, each pertinent item the insurer is waiting for, and, if a new adjuster has been assigned since the last notice, confirmation that the new adjuster has reviewed the claim file and is prepared to continue.

Subsection (5) of WAC 284-30-380, on a time limit that may be about to expire, is in both versions, so it is not new, although it is easy to miss. An insurer negotiating directly with an unrepresented claimant must give written notice that a time limit may be expiring, thirty days before the limit expires for first-party claimants, sixty for third-party claimants. That notice protects the same limitation periods covered in our claim deadlines by state guide, so the two pages are halves of one problem. Readers who find older Washington figures online, such as fifteen working days from proofs of loss, are usually quoting the text that expired on October 18, 2026.

The adjuster's visit is a regulated event in Florida

Florida is the one state of the four that writes the inspection into its statute, and the text gives a homeowner something to hold the visit against. When the investigation involves a physical inspection of the property, the licensed adjuster must give the policyholder a printed or electronic document with his or her name and state adjuster license number, and the insurer must carry out the inspection within 30 days after it receives the proof-of-loss statements. Any later communication about the claim must also state the name and license number of the adjuster who is communicating. The insurer may investigate electronically, with clear color pictures or video documenting the loss, including video conferencing with the policyholder, video recordings made with a drone or other remotely moved machine, and photographs, and it may allow the policyholder to use those methods too. The statute adds a sentence that cuts both ways: the insurer may void the policy if the policyholder, or someone acting at the policyholder's direction, commits insurance fraud with intent by providing false, incomplete or misleading information using electronic methods, and the use of electronic inspection does not stop the insurer from also sending an adjuster in person.

The insurer must also send the policyholder a copy of any detailed estimate within 7 days after the adjuster generates it, though it is not obliged to create a detailed estimate where one is not reasonably necessary. And it must keep two records that matter in a dispute: a log of each adjuster who communicates with the policyholder, which it must provide on request, and dated claim records of communications, the proof of loss, requests for information, inspections, estimates, tolling periods and the payment or denial. A homeowner who keeps the log in the last section of this page and an insurer that keeps the records in subsection (4) will, in a dispute, be comparing two timelines.

Where each clock stops, and where it is paused

A deadline that can be paused is shorter than it looks, so the exceptions deserve their own row in a claim log. Florida's section 627.70131(8) tolls the section's requirements during a mediation proceeding under section 627.7015 or an alternative dispute resolution proceeding in the contract, and also when the policyholder or a representative fails to provide material claims information within 10 days after the insurer's request. Subsection (5)(a) defines "factors beyond the control of the insurer" to include a gubernatorial state of emergency, a reportable data breach or an information technology issue where the Office of Insurance Regulation has ordered that insurers may have extra time, capped at 30 additional days, and policyholder fraud, lack of cooperation or intentional misrepresentation that reasonably prevents compliance.

New York's deadlines are the most dependent on paperwork. The 15 business days run only from a properly executed proof of loss and receipt of all items, statements and forms the insurer requested. If the insurer needs more time, it must write within those 15 business days with the reasons, and then repeat every 90 days. Where it suspects arson the 15 business days become 30 business days. The insurer cannot issue a check bearing language that says acceptance is a final settlement or release of future obligations, section 216.6(g), and where one element of a claim is undisputed it must pay that element even while others are disputed, when it can do so without prejudice to either party, section 216.6(e).

California's regulation puts the deadline to pay on the acceptance rather than the claim, with a far longer window than New York's five business days: 30 calendar days after acceptance in whole or in part, and where several coverages are involved and the payee is known, amounts accepted must be paid within the same 30 days if paying would end the insurer's known liability under that coverage. Its written continuing notice, which must specify the additional information the insurer requires, repeats every 30 calendar days until a determination is made or notice of legal action is served. If the determination depends on a future event, the insurer may satisfy the duty by telling the claimant the situation and estimating when the determination can be made.

What the letters must say when the answer is no, or less

A deadline is only half of the rule. Each rulebook also says what a decision letter has to contain, and a letter that omits a required element is a second complaint on the same claim.

The Florida statements are the easiest to miss on a real check. A payment that is not the last one has to say so, in at least 12-point bold uppercase type: that the insurer is continuing to evaluate the claim and may issue additional payments. A homeowner who receives a payment without that statement, that is also much lower than the insurer's own estimate, has two specific questions to ask in writing: why does the payment differ from your estimate, and is this the final payment.

No day count, but a price on delay: Colorado and Florida compared

Not every rulebook measures delay in days. Colorado's statutes, read on the same date, set a standard of reasonableness instead. Section 10-3-1115 says an insurer's delay or denial of a covered benefit is unreasonable if it happened without a reasonable basis, and section 10-3-1116(1) lets a first-party claimant whose claim has been unreasonably delayed or denied sue in district court to recover reasonable attorney fees, court costs and two times the covered benefit. That action is in addition to other actions available by statute or common law, though damages awarded under the section cannot be recovered in another action. We did not read Colorado's claim-handling regulation, so this page gives no Colorado day counts.

Set that beside Florida. Florida's price is interest at the statutory rate under section 55.03 on a payment made after the 60 days, running from the date the insurer received notice of the claim, and the interest provision cannot be waived by the policy. Colorado's price is measured in multiples of the benefit and tied to a reasonableness finding, not to a calendar. The practical difference is in what a claimant documents. In Florida the useful record is dates. In Colorado it is the reasons: what the insurer said it needed, whether the request was answered, and whether the insurer's basis for waiting was stated.

Why a claim can meet every deadline and still take months

The clocks stop being useful at the moment the insurer says yes. After that, time is spent in places the regulations do not reach. A roof claim is paid in two steps on many replacement cost policies, the first at actual cash value and the second when the work is done, and the holdback does not release until receipts arrive, as the recoverable depreciation guide explains. A supplemental claim for hidden damage found during repairs is a new claim for some purposes: Florida's 60 days apply to initial, reopened and supplemental claims alike, each running from notice of that claim. A large loss may involve an engineer, a contractor shortage and a permit queue. And if the loan is open, the mortgage servicer controls when proceeds reach the contractor, which is a separate process with its own rules, set out in the guide to why your mortgage company is on the claim check.

That sets up some expectations worth managing. A claim is likely to feel slow if you measure it from the loss to the end of repairs, since only the first leg is regulated. And most of the lag in a clean claim comes from your side of the table: a proof of loss that is incomplete restarts the New York clock in effect, and in Florida a 10-day delay in supplying requested material information tolls the section's requirements. The file-a-claim guide sequences the reporting steps, and the appeal guide picks up after a denial.

A log that tests the clocks

The simplest tool is a dated table you keep as events happen. Four columns are enough: what happened, the date, which of the insurer's clocks it started, and the date that clock runs out. Fill in a row at every contact.

A log with these four columns does two things when something goes wrong. It shows whether the insurer has missed a clock, and it shows whether you have given the insurer a reason for the clock to pause. Either answer is useful before a call to the department of insurance.

Deadlines, remedies and delay: your questions

For smoke claims after a California wildfire, the department has said insurers may not deny without an appropriate investigation; our smoke damage claim guide sets out what it expects.