Obligation · starts before the adjuster does

Your duty to limit the damage: what your policy requires before anyone calls back

There is a clause in your policy that does not get read until it matters, and it runs in the opposite direction to most people’s instinct. The Insurance Bureau of Canada puts it in one line: the policy “requires you to act to limit any further damage”.

Not once an adjuster has attended. Not once you have been told it is authorised. From the moment you know about the loss.

What IBC says, exactly

IBC's own examples are the practical ones: boarding up windows, putting tarps over damaged roofs to protect against rain and snow, and — the important qualifier — hiring a qualified professional if it would not be safe to do the temporary repairs yourself.

So the duty is not a duty to become a restoration contractor at 2am. It is a duty to stop the loss getting bigger, by whatever means is reasonable and safe, and that explicitly includes paying somebody to do it.

The instinct it contradicts is the sensible-sounding one: do not touch anything until the insurer says so, or they will not pay. That instinct is about not disposing of evidence, which is a real concern and handled in the next section. It is not a reason to leave water running into a ceiling for eighteen hours.

Mitigating without destroying the evidence

The two obligations look like they conflict and they do not, provided you do them in the right order.

IBC's instruction on the evidence side is equally direct: “keep damaged items unless they are dangerous or pose a health hazard”. It also says to attach proofs of purchase, receipts, police reports, owner’s manuals and warranties, and to keep all clean-up receipts.

So the sequence that satisfies both is:

1. Photograph first, and generously. Wide shot of each affected room, then the water line on the walls, then individual items. Before anything moves. Timestamps beat composition.
2. Then stop the water. Main shut-off, isolation valve, tarp, whatever the cause requires.
3. Then limit the spread. Extract standing water, lift furniture off wet floors, get air moving.
4. Keep what came out. Bag the soaked underlay rather than skipping it, unless it is a health hazard, which under a Category 3 loss it may well be.
5. Keep every receipt. Mitigation costs are ordinarily part of the claim, which is precisely why they need documenting.

Why the clock is not the insurer's clock

The reason the duty is written the way it is becomes obvious once you put it next to the one published biological deadline in this subject. Health Canada states that mould will begin to grow in an area with excessive moisture within 48 hours.

An adjuster returning a call inside two working days is a good adjuster. Two working days can still be more than forty-eight hours. Those two facts are why the duty sits with the policyholder rather than with the insurer: the biology does not wait for the file to be opened.

This is also why a competent restorer will start extracting and drying before a scope has been agreed, and why that is not them taking liberties. Under ANSI/IICRC S500 the restorer is expected to establish dry standards and drying goals during the initial response — measurement first, argument later.

What mitigation does not mean

Three things people over-read into this clause, each of which costs money.

It does not mean authorising a full rebuild. Mitigation is the temporary work that stops the loss growing. Reconstruction is the permanent work that follows, and that is scoped and agreed. Signing a restoration contract at 1am because the duty to mitigate was explained to you by somebody holding the pen is not what the clause requires.

It does not mean you cannot choose the contractor. Insurers frequently have preferred vendors, and using one is often smoother. It is not ordinarily an obligation. IBC's note that the policyholder is responsible for any difference if a contractor's charges exceed the insurer's estimate is the actual constraint, and it is an arithmetic one rather than a permission one.

It does not mean doing unsafe work. IBC's own wording contemplates hiring a professional where the temporary repairs would not be safe to do yourself. Standing water near electrical, anything on a roof in winter, and Category 3 contamination are all in that category.

A short list to keep somewhere findable

The value of this page is entirely in having read it before rather than after, so here is the version worth writing on the inside of a cupboard door.

• Where the main water shut-off is. Actually go and look now.
• Where the panel is, and which breakers cover the basement.
• Your policy number and your insurer's 24-hour claims line.
• Whether you hold sewer backup cover and overland water cover, and what the deductibles are.
• That you photograph before you move anything.
• That you keep receipts for everything, including the fans you buy at 9am.
• That the proof of loss deadline is within 30 days — see how a claim runs.

None of that requires an insurer, a broker or this site. All of it is worth more on the night than any page you could read at the time.

Questions people actually ask

Where to read next

• What happens after you report it
• Cause by cause, what to do first
• Deductibles and paying the difference
• All cover types, side by side