Making Home Insurance Claim

Making an insurance claim for the first time could be very confusing especially for the type of insurance that has a low possibility of filing claims like home insurance. This could be hard for those who don’t have experience in filing claims before, or for the policy holders who handle their own insurance directly to the insurance company without any help from insurance broker or adviser. Actually it’s not a very hard thing to do, here is what you have to do when something bad like accident or natural disaster happens to your home :

Contact The Insurance Company As Soon As Possible
Every insurance company has a time limit or a certain standard of the range between the time of loss and the reporting time. So you better call them right away and ask them if the loss you’ve experienced can be covered. The sooner you make a report the quicker they will process your claim.

Get a Claim Form
after you make a claim report the insurance company will send you a claim form, if you think you have waited too long for this form you should call again to make sure that they’re sending the form to you. Fill out the form and return it as soon as possible to keep the claim process going. Some insurance company can give you a claim form right after you pay your insurance premium just in case, you should check this out to your insurance company, it’s really an advantage to have a claim form in your house because it can make your claim process moves faster.

Avoid Making Permanent Repairs
This is important, don’t ever make any permanent repairs before an official from the insurance company inspects your home to see the damages, because This can make the insurer drops your claims. But you still can make temporary repairs to avoid further damage and save the receipts for any expenses to be reimbursed to the insurance company.

Make a Loss List
Make sure you take notes of every damages (or stolen things if that’s the case) and everything that’s broken. Make a clear list including photographs if possible. Collect all the receipts or checks that can help the insurer to set the value of the damage / lost properties

Deal With The Claim Adjuster Cleverly
The official sent by the insurance company to your house is not a regular employee, the official is actually a special employee called insurance claim adjuster and usually very careful and detail oriented. So you have to be ready with all the facts connected to your claims. Make records of your contacts with the insurance company and the claim adjuster, keep this record in case you will have to make a law suit against the insurer if they drop your claim or you don’t get a proper coverage. It’s also important to make your own loss estimation as a comparison.

Choose The Contractor For Repairmen Job Carefully
It’s best to use a local contractor that you can easily contact after the job is done in case there’s another damage within their work guarantee after the repairmen job finished, and also make sure that this contractor has experience in working due to an insurance claim.

Hopefully these information can give a piece of mind for those who never made a home insurance claim before,  keep save.