Tropical Storm Bertha and Texas Storm Damage Insurance Claims: What Houston Property Owners Should Do Now
Tropical Storm Bertha is not going to be the storm that defines the 2026 season.
That’s the honest read as of this week. Bertha has been limping westward along the northern Gulf Coast as a lopsided, shear-battered system, and forecasters expect it to weaken to a depression or fall apart entirely before it reaches the upper Texas coast Thursday or Friday. Space City Weather has been blunt about it. Houston’s bigger problem right now is the heat, with triple digits in the forecast and heat index values pushing past 110. If you want the official track rather than a forwarded screenshot, the National Hurricane Center updates its advisories throughout the day.
So why write about insurance claims for a storm that may not show up?
Because Texans have watched “it’ll weaken before landfall” turn into eight inches of rain and a flooded first floor often enough to know better. Bertha is the second named storm of the season and it’s only July. Arthur already soaked the Texas coast back in June. Whatever Bertha does or doesn’t do this weekend, the season is going to keep delivering, and the preparation is identical either way.
Callender Bowlin is a Houston firm that represents policyholders in disputes with their insurance companies. Here’s what actually matters.
How to Document Your Property Before a Texas Storm
The most valuable thing you can do this week takes twenty minutes and costs nothing.
Walk your property with your phone and record it. Every room. The roof line. Exterior walls, fences, the garage, the shed, the fleet vehicles if you own a business. Get close on anything expensive and catch serial numbers where you can.
Then pull your policies — homeowner, windstorm, flood, commercial — and put copies somewhere that survives a power outage. Write down the policy numbers and claim intake lines while you still have internet.
This is not busywork. The single most common argument we see carriers make against Texas storm claims is that your damage was pre-existing. Wear and tear. Deferred maintenance. Timestamped video from the week before the storm ends that argument before it starts.
Wind, Flood, or Both: The Distinction That Decides Your Claim
Texas coastal property owners often carry three separate policies, and which one responds to what is the central question in most storm claims.
Homeowner’s insurance covers wind damage in much of the state, but along the coast, private carriers frequently exclude windstorm and hail outright.
Windstorm coverage, often through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, picks up wind and hail where private carriers won’t. TWIA covers the 14 first-tier coastal counties plus the part of Harris County east of Highway 146, which catches a lot of Houston-area property owners by surprise. You have one year from the date of damage to report a TWIA claim, with a possible 180-day extension from the Insurance Commissioner for good cause. That sounds generous. It isn’t, because TWIA also runs its own claims and dispute resolution process with its own internal steps, and burning ten months before you start is how people end up out of options. One more wrinkle: a TWIA policy covers wind-driven rain only if it came in through an opening the wind or hail actually made. Not flooding. Not surge.
Flood insurance, through the NFIP or a private flood carrier, covers rising water. Your homeowner and windstorm policies do not. NFIP claims carry their own proof-of-loss deadline that is far shorter and less forgiving than anything in a standard policy.
Here’s where it gets expensive. When a property takes both wind and water damage, the wind carrier says the water did it and the flood carrier says the wind did it, and the homeowner sits in the middle watching two adjusters point at each other. Causation on a mixed-peril loss is an engineering question, not an adjuster’s gut call, and it is routinely decided against policyholders by people who spent forty minutes on site.
Don’t let one adjuster’s causation opinion become the final word on your claim.
How to File a Texas Storm Damage Insurance Claim
Report to every carrier that might owe coverage, immediately. Late notice is one of the easiest denials for a carrier to write.
Photograph the damage before you clean anything, matching the angles from your “before” walkthrough if you can.
Make reasonable temporary repairs. Tarp the roof, pull the wet carpet, get fans running. Your policy requires you to mitigate, and those costs are generally reimbursable. Keep the receipts.
Don’t make permanent repairs before the inspection, and don’t throw out damaged materials until they’re documented.
And get your own estimate from a contractor who doesn’t work for the insurance company. The carrier’s number is an opening position, not a finding of fact.
The Texas Department of Insurance keeps a help-after-the-storm page covering claim steps, deadlines, and options when you disagree with your carrier, and their help line is 800-252-3439. They can also tell you which company actually holds your policy, which is a surprisingly common problem after a storm. Use them. Then get a second opinion on the number.
Texas Prompt Payment and Bad Faith Insurance Law
Texas gives policyholders real tools. The Prompt Payment of Claims Act sets hard deadlines for acknowledging, investigating, and paying claims, and a carrier that blows those deadlines can owe statutory interest and attorney’s fees on top of the claim itself. The Texas Insurance Code also prohibits unfair settlement practices, including misrepresenting coverage, failing to conduct a reasonable investigation, and denying a claim without a reasonable basis.
But Texas also built in procedural traps that favor insurers. For most weather-related claims, you have to send a detailed pre-suit notice letter before you can file, generally at least 61 days out, spelling out the dispute and the amount claimed. Get that notice wrong and you can lose the ability to recover attorney’s fees. Policies and statutes both impose limitations periods on top of it.
The practical result is that underpaid Texas storm claims get corrected all the time. They just get corrected more easily when someone catches the procedural requirements early instead of eighteen months in.
Signs Your Claim Is Being Mishandled
- The adjuster’s estimate is a fraction of your contractor’s
- The denial cites wear and tear, pre-existing damage, or maintenance
- Your wind carrier and flood carrier are blaming each other and nobody is paying
- Weeks pass with no inspection, no decision, and no returned calls
- You’re pushed to settle fast, before the full scope is known
- Hidden damage surfaces after the claim was closed — roof decking, trapped moisture, mold
Any one of those is worth a second opinion. Supplemental claims exist for a reason, and closed claims get reopened.
When to Call a Houston Storm Damage Insurance Lawyer
Bertha may fizzle. The next one might not. Either way, insurance disputes outlast the storms that cause them, and the worst time to figure out how your policies fit together is after the water’s already in the house.
Callender Bowlin handles hurricane and storm damage claims, flood and water damage, property damage, business interruption, and bad faith insurance claims from our Houston office at 4299 San Felipe. We represent policyholders only, and we’ve tried these cases.
If Bertha damages your property, or you’re still fighting an underpaid claim from Arthur or an earlier storm, call (713) 300-8700 or request a case evaluation.
The Founding Partners: Mark Callender & Josh Bowlin
Mark Callender – Founding Partner
Mark Callender earned his J.D. summa cum laude from South Texas College of Law in 2001, graduating as class valedictorian and serving as Editor-in-Chief of the law review. He also took the National Moot Court Championship – a credential that foreshadowed a career built on oral argument and trial advocacy. His undergraduate degree came from Texas A&M University (B.S., Political Science, 1998).
Callender began his practice at Vinson & Elkins in 2002 before co-founding Serpe, Jones, Andrews, Callender & Bell, PLLC in 2009 and expanding his New Mexico trial practice by 2010. His Colorado practice followed in 2022 – the same year he and Bowlin launched Callender Bowlin, PLLC. Texas Bar records show him as eligible to practice, Bar Card No. 24034356, with a license date of May 3, 2002, and no public disciplinary history. His firm bio identifies him as licensed in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Super Lawyers has recognized Callender as a Texas Super Lawyer for 2024, 2025, and 2026, and as a Rising Star for 2005 and every year from 2008 through 2015. He holds fellowship in the Texas Bar Foundation and membership in the Houston Bar Association and New Mexico Bar Association. H Texas Magazine has also recognized him as a professional on the fast track.
Josh Bowlin – Founding Partner
Josh Bowlin earned his B.A. summa cum laude from Southwestern University and his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law on a Presidential Scholarship. His bio additionally notes academic study at Peking University and University College London. He has practiced since 2002, when he received his Texas license (Bar Card No. 24036253, license date November 6, 2002), and the Texas Bar confirms no public disciplinary history.
Bowlin’s Super Lawyers record is particularly extensive: he has been selected to the Texas Super Lawyers list every year from 2020 through 2026, and to the Texas Rising Stars list from 2012 through 2017. H Texas Magazine has named him a Top Lawyer in Houston repeatedly between 2013 and 2017. His current practice is concentrated in healthcare advocacy, commercial litigation, and first-party insurance claims – but his bio makes clear that personal injury and catastrophic injury matters remain central to his docket.
Bowlin’s courtroom record includes an appearance as counsel in the published Texas appellate case Levco Constr., Inc. v. Whole Foods Mkt. Rocky Mountain/Southwest L.P. (Tex. App. 2017), in which the appellate court affirmed a trial-court damages award of $465,809.57 in a breach-of-contract dispute – one of the few independently verifiable case outcomes that can be confirmed from public court records rather than firm marketing alone.
