Home insurance in Baltimore is about your policy, your deductible, and a claim on a rowhouse that does not behave like a detached suburban house. Party walls, parapets, flat roof sections, and English basements create damage that is easy to misdescribe. Wind can lift a small area of covering and still soak a long interior because the house is narrow and the water has nowhere to spread out. Start with the block you live on and what the building just did.
Read the declarations page before you compare anything. Note the dwelling limit, the base deductible, and any separate deductible for wind or hail. Rebuilding a brick rowhouse, with its shared walls and odd roof, is not the same idea as the figure someone would pay to buy the address. If the limit looks like a sale figure from another era, say that. The page is what the policy will argue from. Your description of the rooms is what the claim will argue from.
Water claims get muddy in this city. Rain through a failed roof or a cracked parapet is a different event from groundwater in a cellar or from a municipal backup at the alley. A standard policy often treats flood and sewer backup differently from sudden damage above. Do not decide the category yourself. Say whether the water came from the ceiling, from a wall you share, or from the floor during a hard rain. The path is the fact. The label can wait.
If a storm just marked the house up, write down when you first saw the stain, which floors are involved, and what you have already tarped or moved. A mid-block roof can be hard to see from the street, so say what you can see from a rear window or the attic hatch. Prior claims matter, and so does an old roof you already knew was tired. Photos help after you call.
Say whether you are checking a policy, asking what a deductible means before you repair, or starting a claim on damage you can stand under. Mention a flat roof or a basement that has taken water before. Home insurance in Baltimore starts with the declarations page and the way this rowhouse is built. Call the number on this page.