Home Insurance Claims Explained

Home Insurance provides financial protection to your property and/or possessions in the event of damage. The type of cover you have depends on the policy you purchase.

In general, home insurance falls into two categories:

Buildings Insurance – This covers the cost of repairing damage to the structure of your property.

Policies vary but in general, buildings insurance covers loss or damage caused by:

Contents Insurance – This covers loss or damage to your possessions in your property that are not part of its structure.

Again, policies do vary but you are usually covered for:

Most policies will have a limit on the value of possessions they cover. This will either be a single item limit (often around £1,500 per item) or a total amount for all of your valuables.

Your home is one of the most valuable possessions you own and likely one of the biggest investments you will ever make. It is your safe place, where you make memories and keep all your belongings and comforts. For this reason, it makes sense to protect it should the worst happen. While there is no legal requirement to purchase home insurance, many mortgage providers will insist you have cover as standard.

Although the UK isn’t prone to violent weather such as hurricanes, earthquakes or tornados, it is still important to get cover. There are other more common natural disasters in this country that can still completely devastate your home including floods, storms and fires.

If you’ve suffered damage, the first thing you should do is locate your home insurance policy documents. You’ll need two pieces of information that can be found in this document, these are:

Once you have these in hand, contact your insurer immediately. Explain what has happened and await their instructions.

Your insurer will ask you to fill out and return to them a standard claims form. This can usually be downloaded directly from your insurer’s website. Aim to return this form as soon as possible to get your claim moving forward promptly.

Start to collect evidence of the damage your property has suffered. Take photographs of the damage in each room and send these to your insurer to support your claim.

If your policy also includes contents insurance, ideally you will need to locate receipts of all the damaged items you are claiming for. The likelihood is that you threw a lot of these receipts away, so the alternative is to look into your credit/debit card statements to prove the purchases. If you do not have access to this information, your card provider should be able to send these to you at your request.

If the damage you have suffered is particularly large, your insurer will send out a representative – a loss adjuster – to inspect the damage for themselves. These adjusters work in the interests of your insurer. Their remit is to ‘adjust’ your claim downwards, e.g. to minimise the amount that needs to be paid out to you – or reject the claim altogether.

Once they have visited your home, they will determine how much the damage would cost to repair. This is where problems can occur, which we’ll dive into later on in the article.

If the loss adjuster estimates the damage to cost the same amount as you, you’ll encounter no problems. Your insurer will either arrange for the damage to be repaired via their network of contractors, or pay you the amount that was agreed.

The home insurance claim process should be as straightforward as we’ve described, however issues often arise. These issues usually start with the loss adjuster estimating the cost to rebuild your property to be much lower than it actually is. You can argue your case alone, however very few – if any – get the settlement they’re entitled to this way.

If you disagree with your insurer, our advice is to contact an independent loss assessor immediately.

Although an independent loss assessor can’t change the fact that you have suffered a great loss, they genuinely care about getting you the best settlement possible and reducing the stress and upset felt after the event.

If your claim has been turned down or if you’ve not been able to negotiate a satisfactory outcome, a loss assessor can take a look at your policy and determine whether or not you have a case. If you do, they can take control of your claim on your behalf, so that you can begin to recover and get life moving again.

Often insurers will try to confuse you with industry jargon. Not to mention, loss adjusters will often use your lack of knowledge to their advantage. Being a layperson with no experience in the industry is likely to leave you struggling to find the right terminology, making it extremely difficult to formulate a line of argument.

With an independent loss assessor on your side, you won’t have to worry about interpreting policy clauses and translating any confusing insurance jargon – they will do this all for you. A loss assessor will negotiate with the loss adjuster on your behalf, argue your case and battle to get the settlement you deserve.

By appointing a loss assessor like Property Claim Assist, you will no longer have to manage your claim alone. Once they take on your claim, they’ll see it through from start to finish. You get full property claim management and representation, an accurate claim valuation and a full property repairs service, at no charge – exactly what you deserve during such a stressful time.

Click here for more reasons why a Loss Assessor is truly worth it.

If you choose to appoint us as your loss assessor, we’ll do all in our power to ensure you get full reparations for the property damage you may have incurred. With decades of industry experience in the U.K, we’ve helped countless homeowners, business owners and landlords get adequately compensated for their damaged property. We are happy to have a ‘no obligation’ chat to explain how we can assist you.

To speak directly with a loss assessor about your home insurance claim, call us on 0333 577 2720 today.