06 — What receipts do I keep for an ALE claim?

Additional Living Expense is an increase story. The claim professional cannot see the increase if they cannot see two pictures: what you spent before the loss, and what you are spending now because you cannot live at home. NAIC tells you to keep every receipt. TDI tells you to save all receipts to show the company. Travelers tells you to save them in chronological order, to put a short description on each one, and to agree with the claim professional on a schedule for sending them. Those three instructions are enough. This chapter is a kit for following them when you are tired.

We are not the people who decide which line gets paid. We are the people who have watched families lose a month of meal receipts in a glove box. Use a large envelope, a folder in your email, or a shared album — whatever you will actually keep.

Two columns, from the first week

Column A is baseline — the ordinary cost of living in the damaged home. Grocery averages, the utility bills that already existed, the pet food you already bought, the laundry you already did at home, the miles you already drove to work and school. Bank statements, a few grocery receipts, and last month’s electric bill are more persuasive than a speech. You are not building a novel. You are showing what “normal” looked like.

Column B is displacement — the new folios and receipts that exist only because the house is unlivable. Hotel, furnished housing, restaurant meals while there is no kitchen, laundromat, extra miles, storage, pet boarding, a second set of toiletries you had to replace in a hurry.

The difference is the conversation. Not the whole of Column B. Not the mortgage, which NAIC reminds you still belongs to you.

What to keep, category by category

Housing. Every hotel folio, every furnished-home invoice, every parking fee the hotel charged because you no longer had a driveway. If the desk is direct-billing Jubilee or another provider, still keep a copy of the invoice so you can see what the file was asked to pay. If you paid a refundable deposit, keep that receipt separately and note that it is a deposit.

Meals. While you are in a hotel without a kitchen, NAIC’s consumer page lists reasonable restaurant meals as a typical ALE item. Save every dining receipt and mark who ate (the household, not a visiting cousin unless the adjuster has said otherwise). The moment you move into a place with a kitchen, the restaurant increment should stop. You go back toward grocery baseline. You may still have a first-night pizza while the boxes are on the floor; you should not have a month of restaurants after the stove works. Tell the adjuster the date the kitchen became available so nobody is surprised. This is one of the simplest ways to keep ALE from running out before the drywall is primed — TDI’s warning, not a slogan.

Laundry. Laundromat receipts, or the hotel’s laundry charges, while you have no washer. When the furnished home has machines, that line should fall back toward whatever detergent you already bought.

Mileage. If the temporary place lengthens the commute to work, school, or the damaged house (contractors will call), keep a simple log: date, from, to, purpose, miles. III’s ALE pieces list extra mileage as the kind of “other cost” families forget. Do not estimate a year in your head. Log a week and you will see the pattern. Ask the adjuster how they want mileage documented; some use a rate, some want gas receipts, some want both.

Storage. If contents cannot stay in a wet or burned room, the storage unit and the moving truck are often part of the increase. Keep the contract and every month’s invoice. Tell the desk before you rent a unit the size of a barn.

Pets. Boarding, extra deposits a landlord charges because the dog exists, crates you had to buy because the hotel required them. If the furnished home takes the pets, boarding should stop — that is the point of comparable housing. Ask the adjuster before you assume a pet deposit is reimbursable.

Utilities. Two directions matter. At the damaged house you may still owe the mortgage and some utilities the lender or the restoration company needs left on. At the temporary place you may have new electric, water, or internet. TDI and III both treat extra costs you would not have had as the heart of ALE. A bill that is simply the same electric company at a new address may be a wash, a decrease, or an increase. Show both bills and let the desk do the arithmetic. If Jubilee’s homes include utilities and Wi-Fi in the housing invoice the desk already sees, do not double-submit them as if you paid them twice.

Things that are usually not the increase. The mortgage. The car payment you already had. The phone plan you already had. New furniture you decided to buy for a house you do not yet occupy. Gifts. A vacation you tacked onto the displacement. If you are not sure, ask the adjuster before you spend, which is cheaper than asking after.

How to send the kit

Once a week is a humane rhythm for a long claim; the day after a hotel checkout is the right rhythm for a short one. Travelers asks for chronological order and a description on each receipt. A single PDF or a clearly named set of photos (2026-09-03-hotel-folio.jpg) saves everyone time. Put the claim number in the private email to the assigned claim professional, not in the filename you later forward to a group text.

On the cover note, three sentences are enough: where you stayed that week, whether a kitchen was available, and the total of the attached receipts. Mention any day you went back to the damaged house, so extra mileage has a reason.

If you reach a number that feels large, do not hide it and do not dramatize it. TDI’s ALE page tells you the company pays the reasonable amount up to the limit. Reasonable is the claim professional’s word. Early, small submissions train the file. One giant envelope on month four surprises it.

Direct-bill does not retire the kit

Even when Jubilee (or another provider) bills the desk for housing, you still have meals, laundry, mileage, storage, and the baseline. Direct-bill is one invoice. It is not the whole of ALE. Keep the kit until you have slept in your own house and the adjuster says the Loss of Use chapter of the file is closed.