If You Need Claim Advice, Try Your Insurer First.

Because your home is the biggest investment and the longest lasting you are ever going to make, you had better get the best insurance that you can afford. Then when something goes wrong be sure to get the best claim advice too. It is not just your house though is it? There are all your contents that you will insure even when you are renting a property. Then there is your car and your boat ect. etc. etc..

The best and cheapest claim advice you can get is from your insurer. They have a legal obligation to advise on what you can and can’t claim for. Bear in mind that everything they tell you will be contained in your policy, asking for their help often saves you from reading through the jargon they put in the small print.

For the sake of this post I am going to assume that you have a good insurance policy or policies covering everything you own. There is one peice of claim advice that is the stand out headline and includes all insurers. “Even if it costs you a little bit more be sure to have your buildings and contents cover on the same policy”. When it comes to making a claim communications are shortened and so is the claim completion timescale. AND you get a better settlement result.

If you are ever unfortunate enough to have a large claim it is almost certain that a loss adjuster is instructed by insurers. This, believe it or not is a good thing and for two main reasons. firstly because of their intimate knowledge of insurance matters they are in a position to provide the best claim advice. Secondly is because of their professional charter which requires them to be even handed with the insurer and with the insured.

When you think about it buying an insurance policy is very much the same as making a claim on it. So if you take advice on which policy best covers your needs for your insurers, that same advice will be covered again when seeking claim advice on a problem. Therefore if you bought the right policy in the first place you don’t need claim advice.

Insurance Companies do not like absent landlords, that is to say they don’t like insured properties to be left empty for more than 30 days at a time. The reason is not unfair because the burglars in our world target long term empty properties, and if a burglar leaves a property open squatters could move in. You had better believe good claim advice is going to be hard to find in these circumstances.

The answer is of course to have someone visit the property regularly and check around to make sure everything is OK. Tell your insurers that this is happening and make sure your ‘friend make out a calender of their visit. A simple tick on a calender you supply will usually be good enough.

A mentioned in a previous post If insurers can seethat you are looking after your property their claims handling services will run like clockwork. The opposite is true if they see you being stupidly careless. Things like condition will be covered in your policy. It is less of an issue if you are covered by a new for old clause in your policy. That is to say, if a five year item is the subject of a claim which is accepted by insurers they will replace it with an equivalent new item.

There are limitations to all insurance policies. For instance most home contents policies will have a limit to the value of a single item and this is usually around $7000 or £5000. This means that you must list all your valuable items and insurers will make appropriate adjustments to your premium. Be aware that if you lose an item that is not listed but is above the standard limit, insurers will only pay out to that limit. No matter what claim advice you get, it will make no difference because it is written into the policy.

All manner of natural disasters are taking place all over the world and they are increasing year on year. This means that you should discuss natural disasters when buying a policy and again you will have the comfort of knowing you are covered. The more you tell your insurer the less likely you will require claim advice and the more you can rest easy.

I have been told off many times for telling policyholders that it does them no good to instruct an independent claims handler. They are expensive, have no more authority than you and they get in the way of progress by always trying to appoint their own contractors. In other words; they line their pockets at your expense. Legally of course the is nothing to stop you making such an appointment. Their charges are leveraged against your claim costs so the larger the claim thye higher is their fee AND YOU HAVE TO PAY IT. They tend not to be the best source of claim advice.

No related posts.

Tagged with: Claim Advice. • homeowners insurance claims • Property damage claims

Filed under: homeowners insurance claims

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!