Knowing When to File an Home Insurance Claim

When you pay homeowners insurance you are protecting yourself in the event anything should happen to your home or property. However, there are instances where you’d be better off paying the repair and of replacement cost out of your own pocket.

Photo: Country Living

Although by law you are not required to insure your home, you’ll likely have a difficult time coming up with reasons you should not insure your home. People who have homeowner’s insurance policies would feel the need to file a claim whenever their property suffers damage, or something is stolen from said property or home. That is currently not how things work. People can file home insurance claims when they feel the need to those who do so often, though, are likely to be victims of higher rates or even policy cancellations.

Learn About the Consequences

Consequences related to filing ill-advised claims or filing many claims don’t end with very high premiums or lower coverage. Those who lose coverage struggle to find affordable policies elsewhere. Homeowners who end up in this situation usually end up with policies that may not be fully adequate to pay all costs of rebuilding their property after a disaster/damage.

If your home or property suffers substantial damage, the first thing you want to address, after ensuring everyone in the home is safe, is to file a claim with your insurance company or finding a public adjuster.

The Most Important Step in Filing Your Claim

Repair or replacement costs you want the insurance to cover must not exceed your deductible. This may be the most important step in filing your home insurance claim. This is because you are filing a claim you know your insurer cannot cover. If you’ve just bought a house, or renovated your home you definitely want to know the ins and outs of filing a claim. This kind of claims waste your homeowner’s insurance company’s time is not the only reason to avoid filing. Another reason is, whenever you file a claim (even if it is denied, or even if it pays nothing,) its documented in the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange or CLUE.

Know Your Personal CLUE File

Every insurance provider around checks this database before deciding as to whether they should insure you and how much they should charge you. The reason they do this is that CLUE contains information about all claims a person has made in the last seven years. If you’re going to file a claim that will be added to your personal CLUE file, make it be for something major in the home. If your home decorating is damaged from a flood for instance, it may not be a huge cost to replace this, and your walls/flooring may be a smarter asset to claim.