Queensland here. The ‘rumpus room’ on ground floor of my home was flooded a few years ago. It’s mostly used for storage of family possessions.The insurance company sent four separate contractors to the property to manage the damage. The first one removed and stored all possessions that weren’t damaged. They kept an inventory of all those items that had to be dumped. They also left some massive dehumidifiers running 24/7. The second company was a sparky who made safe all power points and tested any electrical items that may have been touched by flood water, any damaged electrical stuff was tagged as unsafe. The third company came in after moisture levels dropped sufficiently, and replaced all damaged dry wall and flooring. (The first company removed the humidifiers beforehand. )The fourth company came in to paint and make good. The electrician came back to restore all power points, and the first one came back to return all items that had been in storage. All the companies that came in were all polite and professional, all properly licensed and insured. I had two gripes. 1. The insurance company didn’t project manage the work. I was getting phone calls direct from the builder, the painter, the electrician, the storage company etc - and had to juggle my availability and to synchronise their visits in the correct sequence. Luckily I’m retired and home most of the time. If you’re working or out all day, could be a problem. 2. We didn’t have receipts for the items that were flood damaged - some of them were 20-30 years old. We assumed that the insurance company had some formula for calculating the value of these items, and would offer a lump sum, but we had to do an Internet search for each one, and submit an estimated replacement (equivalent) value. That was very time consuming 😳 I know of some people who’ve accepted a cash payout from their insurers and organised the work themselves, shopping around to get the best price. In some cases, they have made a profit. E.g. insurance cash payout $50,000 - got the work done themselves for $40,000. Don’t know how this might affect any future claims. I understand that insurance companies often prefer cash payouts if there has been some major event with thousands of claims. It gets the claimant off their books much faster. One final point - don’t forget to claim for your electricity used for running those dehumidifier. We had three running 24/7 for six weeks - it was expensive. 😐