Yes. Most homeowners policies include Additional Living Expense coverage — usually called ALE — which pays for temporary housing while your home is uninhabitable after a covered loss. It's a standard part of the policy, not an add-on you have to buy separately.

If your home was damaged by fire, water, storm, or another covered event, and you can't reasonably live in it during repairs, ALE is the coverage that pays for somewhere else to stay.

What does ALE actually cover?

ALE covers the increase in your living costs, not your total living costs. The idea is to keep you roughly where you were financially before the loss — not better off, not worse off.

That typically includes:

• Rent for a temporary residence

• Furniture rental, if the temporary residence isn't furnished

• Utilities at the temporary residence, above what you normally paid

• Additional meal costs, if your temporary housing has no kitchen

• Extra mileage, if your temporary housing is farther from work or school

• Pet boarding, in some policies

• Storage for belongings that don't fit in the temporary residence

Your mortgage payment is not an ALE expense. You still owe it, and you would have owed it anyway, so it isn't an increase.

How much will insurance pay?

For most homeowners policies, the ALE limit falls somewhere between 20% and 30% of your dwelling coverage. On a home insured for $300,000, that's roughly $60,000 to $90,000 available for temporary housing.

Verify your own number on your declarations page. That single page lists your actual ALE limit, and policies vary. If you can't find it, your agent can send you a copy. Some policies also apply a time limit alongside the dollar cap — whichever runs out first.

One thing worth knowing: your ALE limit is separate from your dwelling coverage. Money spent on temporary housing doesn't reduce what's available to rebuild your home.

How long does ALE coverage last?

ALE generally runs for the reasonable time required to repair or rebuild your home, subject to your policy's limit. It's tied to the repair timeline, not to a fixed calendar date.

That cuts both ways. If repairs take four months, you're covered for four months. If repairs drag on because of permitting, materials, or contractor scheduling, coverage generally continues — but the standard is how long the work should reasonably take, which is where disagreements tend to start.

Who Is Actually Working for You?

If your carrier offers to help with housing, that help usually comes through a third-party relocation vendor — typically a national company based outside Oklahoma. It's a useful option to have. But it's worth understanding the arrangement: their client is the insurance company, not you.

That means you see the options they present. You don't see the ones they didn't. A home that sits comfortably within your policy limits may never reach you, simply because it wasn't the option put forward.

None of that is hidden or improper. It's how the relationship is structured. Most policyholders just don't realize it until they're already living somewhere they didn't choose.

What you're allowed to do

• Ask what else is available. You can request options beyond the ones presented to you.

• Find your own housing. As long as the cost is reasonable and falls within your policy limits, the choice is generally yours.

• Decline a hotel. If your repair timeline is measured in months, you can ask for a furnished home comparable to the one you lost.

• Work with someone who represents you. You are not required to use a vendor selected by your carrier.

How to Choose a Temporary Housing Provider

Displacement is a bad time to discover that the company helping you hasn't done this before. Before you commit to anyone, ask:

What will I owe up front? You shouldn't be fronting money while you're managing a claim and a damaged home. Ask what the total out-of-pocket cost is, and get the answer in writing.

What happens if my repairs run past the original estimate? They usually do. The answer should be a clear process, not "we'll figure it out."

Who handles the lease, and what am I signing? You should know exactly what your obligations are and what happens if the timeline shifts.

Have you worked with my carrier before? Every carrier and ALE administrator handles documentation differently. Knowing what yours needs, and how quickly they move, is the difference between a placement that takes days and one that takes weeks.

Are you local? Oklahoma inventory, Oklahoma carriers, Oklahoma repair timelines. A national call center is working from a database. Someone here is working from knowledge of the market.

Read the reviews carefully — all of them

Reviews tell you a lot if you read past the star rating:

• Do they describe real situations? A genuine review mentions specifics — a house fire, a four-month rebuild, a town, a family with two kids and a dog. Vague praise tells you nothing.

• Are they spread out over time? Steady reviews across years look different from a cluster that appeared in one month.

• Are the reviewers local? People displaced by an Oklahoma claim are Oklahoma families.

• Does the company respond? How a business answers a complaint tells you more than any five-star review.

Our reviews come from Oklahoma families who lived through exactly what you're going through. Read them and judge for yourself.

Why We Started

From Stephen Parker, founder of Tulsa Corporate Housing

I've been helping people navigate insurance claims since 2011 — first auto, then homeowners.

Through 2020, I managed an independent collision repair facility. Most body shops in that industry are contracted directly with insurance companies. Independents aren't. So when a customer came in with a damaged vehicle, our job was to make sure the repair was done correctly and the customer was treated fairly — even when that meant a harder conversation with the carrier.

From 2021 to 2022, I sold homeowners policies. That taught me the other half: exactly what a family is told their coverage will do for them on the day they buy it.

Those two things together are the whole reason this company exists. A policy should be honored the way it was represented when it was sold. That's not an adversarial position. It's just the deal.

When I moved into housing, I saw what happens when nobody holds that line. Families stuck in hotel rooms for months. Families separated from their pets because the only option offered didn't take animals. Families reorganizing their entire lives — schools, commutes, routines — around a rebuild, when a house in their own neighborhood was available and within their policy limits the whole time.

The coverage was there. Nobody was helping them use it.

So in 2022 I started Tulsa Corporate Housing to do the thing nobody in Oklahoma was doing — sit down with the policyholder, explain how ALE actually works, find the home that fits their family rather than the one that happened to be vacant, and handle it so the family never paid out of pocket.

We were the first in Oklahoma to do that, and it's still the whole job.

We've spent those years working alongside the carriers and adjusters operating in this state. We know what each one needs and how they document, which expedites the process considerably — placements that would otherwise take weeks often happen in days.

— Stephen Parker Founder, Tulsa Corporate Housing

Get Help

If you've been displaced and don't know where to start, request housing or call 918.200.1658. There's no cost to ask and no commitment.

This page is general information about how Additional Living Expense coverage typically works. Your policy governs. Review your declarations page and consult your agent or adjuster about your specific coverage.