After a disaster, your priority is your own safety and meeting your day-to-day needs. Once you’re safe, focus on the bills you need to pay first. There may also be organizations that can help.
Starting over after a disaster involves a lot of complicated choices, uncertainty, and expenses. While your day-to-day priorities and even your income may have changed, you can’t forget about ongoing financial responsibilities like utilities, credit card bills, and loan payments. Your lenders may be willing to work with you, but be proactive to avoid extra expenses, fees, and actions that could negatively impact your credit score.
After a natural disaster, nonprofits and government agencies may be available to provide assistance. It may take some work to apply, but it can be worth it if you qualify for assistance.
This site is managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and can help you find shelters and up–to-date emergency resources and information. After the disaster has passed, they’ll have more information about recovery including warnings about potential scams and rumors related to disasters.
If your area is a presidentially declared disaster area, you will be able to fill out an application for assistance. The application is available in both English and Spanish.
Why: Your policy may require you to file a claim within a certain period of time after a disaster or other incident.
Why: If government assistance is available, it can help pay for the repairs to your home, car, or other property.
Why: While damage to your home doesn’t stop your responsibility to pay your mortgage, there may be options to help you make or change your payments while you don’t have a steady income or you face other financial difficulties. These options include forbearance or a repayment plan.
Why: If your home is damaged to the point that you can’t live in it, suspend your service so you’re not paying for unused services. This could help free up money in your budget for other expenses.
Why: While damage to your car doesn’t stop your responsibility to pay your auto loan, there may be options to help you.
What to do: Call your auto lender and tell them about your situation. Ask if they offer a hardship or forbearance program or if your loan had any add-on products that might be triggered for disaster victims.
Why: Some companies will waive interest and late fees; while others may allow you to stretch out or pause monthly payments.
What to do: Explain your situation and when you might be able to resume normal payments. Ask your creditor to work with you. There may be options to help you. Ask about disaster hardship or forbearance programs.
Why: If you work or live in a federally declared disaster area and have a federal student loan, you may qualify for disaster forbearance for up to 90 days. During the forbearance period, you don’t have to make payments, although interest will continue to accrue, and you will have to make up these amounts eventually.
What to do: If you are a federal student loan borrower, contact your lender or loan servicer. The Department of Education has more information
. If you don’t have a federal student loan, you should contact your student loan servicer to see if they have a forbearance or hardship program.
Why: If your income is impacted, you’ll need to make a plan to manage your financial obligations to avoid missing payments and accumulating debt.
What to do: It’s important to set up a budget and understand when your bills will be due. We have a booklet of tools to help people manage their day-to-day finances
Why: You may be making alternative arrangements, like forbearance or a reduction of your interest rate, with your creditors. You want to make sure the arrangement isn’t misreported on your credit report. For example, if your creditor agreed to let you skip one month’s payment, make sure they didn’t report it as delinquent or a missed payment.
You can get a free credit report from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies at least once every 12 months. And until the end of 2026, you can get an additional six free credit reports every 12 months from Equifax. When you visit the site, you may see steps to view more frequently updated reports online. This means that you have opportunities to request reports, monitor your credit, and ask for any errors to be corrected. You can request a copy of your credit reports through AnnualCreditReport.com
Even after following the above steps, a natural disaster can impact your finances in ways you may not expect or aren’t prepared for. Learn more about financial problems after a natural disaster – and what you can do about them.