Like it or not, if your home is flooded as a result of rising water, due to a river overflow or a rise in the level of an ocean or a lake, if you do not have flood insurance you will not receive payment for you loss in accordance with your home owners insurance policy. Then again, depending on the terms and the deductible amount of your home owners insurance policy it is quite likely that water damage suffered as a result of a storm or a broken pipe and/or a broken hot water heater will be paid, in part, to you.
As such, you should receive the depreciated book value for the loss and/or damage to your personal property and also the amount required to repair the water damage to your home and its fixtures. It is also possible that your losses might exceed the amount of coverage that you purchased. In which case, you will only receive the amount up to the dollar amount of the coverage that you did purchase, minus the amount of the deductible that might or might not be part of the terms included within the insurance policy.
In any event, it is your responsibility to somehow prove the amount of your loss. The best way to do that is to save the purchase receipts for all of your tangible personal property. It is also wise to take a picture of as many of those items as possible, including your furniture and automobile, in the event that those items are simply washed away and never to be seen again.
Be that as it may, do not expect to receive the replacement cost for the loss of your tangible property. However, you should receive the market value of those used items, based on the age and the condition of every item. The value of such items are usually the most contested, in regard to your actual loss.
Therefore, it is wise to make your own determination of the value of all of your tangible personal property at least once each year. Then again, you should not agree to the settlement if there is a great difference between what you are offered and what you believe it the actual value of your loss.
Another common issue of dispute is if the water damage actually was the result of wind damage, due to some such violent storm, rather than rising water, in regard to a flood caused by rising water levels of a river, lake or ocean. Here again, if you did purchase a government flood insurance policy the payment for your loss will be calculated in the same manner.
With all of the above in mind, you must prove your actual monetary loss. That means that you must prove that your lost and/or damaged items are worth more than the amount paid to settle your claim of loss. Good luck!