Home Insurance Claims: 3 Ways to Handle them

Be careful with your claims

Your house is damaged. What do you do?

If you have home insurance, you call your insurance company, file a claim, and they cut you a check. Wow! That was easy. Yeah right!?!

As a matter of fact, insurance companies will do everything to get out of your home insurance claims. It turns out that the very first call to the insurance company plays a major role in your home insurance claims and ultimately, that desired payment.

With the average homeowner loss of about $7500, it is a big deal, so better get your calls, reports, and claims right to the ears of your insurance providers.

Firstly, never ever lie to your insurers. That is fraud and it can get you in bigger trouble. However, this goes without saying that you shouldn’t think about the way you phrase things because some people can say things that can actually cause their claims to become delayed for weeks, particularly, if you make insurance companies suspicious of fraud.

Keep that claim on track by learning the insurance industry lingo.

Here are some tips on how to handle home insurance claims:

• When reporting to insurance companies, don’t use guess phrases of what might be causing the damages that occurred like,

“I think….” or “Maybe….”

Even if you feel that you got the hunch dead on, it is better to say that you don’t know what could be the cause of the flood, fire, collapse, and etc. Saying something like — “I think the collapse was caused by a construction shortcoming.” — will just give insurers idea on how they can get out of your claims as you might say things that might be an exclusion on your policy.

• Just state the facts on how you see things. Don’t say,

“My basement is flooded.”

There is a very specific definition of flood in the insurance world. It is a water that is caused by nearby body of water in your home such as a lake, stream, or river. So if you see your basement full of water that might be caused by pipe leak or something like that, don’t say to the insurer that your basement is flooded. Instead, say that your basement floor is full of water and let things go on from there. Just don’t bring up the issue of “flooding” at the outset.

• Don’t emphasize that you are all in it for the money. Never say,

“Just send me the check!”

It will just make the insurers suspicious that you are going to use the money for something else that is not a legit claim. It is better to just stress that you need to get that something fixed or repair as soon as possible.