How To Make A House Insurance Claim

As soon as you become aware of a problem, you should get in touch with your insurance company (or your broker, if you used one) immediately. Most of them will have supplied you with a specific phone number to call in the event of a problem at the time you took out a policy with them. If you don't know what it is, check your insurance documentation; it is usually very prominently displayed on related documents.

Tell them what has happened, and give as much information as they ask for. If they don't tell you outright, ask them what you should do next. For example, if you roof has been damaged by sever weather, they may tell you to have emergency repairs carried out – but make sure they will cover the cost of doing so. They may specify that you contact a particular business whom they have pre-approved to carry out such repairs. In that instance, if you use a different repair service instead, it's very likely to WON'T cover the associated costs at all. They will also send you out a claims form, which you should fill out in full.

If the amount you intend to claim for is very large, you may wish to employ the service of an "insurance assessor", who will work on your behalf to deal with your insurance company and settle the claim in your favour. However, the fees charged by an assessor are not covered by your insurance policy, so you should take the additional cost into consideration beforehand. An insurance assessor is different to a “loss adjustor”, who will be in the employ of an insurance company, not a policy holder.

Although most insurance claims are settled to the satisfaction of most policy holders, it is possible for a claim to be refused. There are many possible reasons for that, but the most common one is simply that the damage being claimed for is not actually covered by the insurance policy in question (which is why you should always check the exact details of your policy at the time you take it out; NOT when you go to make a claim, by which time it will be too late to change anything!). Another common reason is that the damage being claimed for is actually caused by normal wear and tear, and not by something covered in your policy.

Other reasons to refuse a claim can include not meeting specific requirements of the policy, such as failing to report a burglary to the Gardai, or not having your alarm turned on if your house was unoccupied at the time of a break in.

In all cases of refusal, your insurance provider will write to you to explain the reasons that are specific to your case.

If your claim is successful, but you have underestimated the value of your home, or your home contents, at the time you bought your insurance policy, you may receive much less money that you claimed for. This is because of the "average clause" contained in many policies: If, for example, your home contents are worth €50,000, but you only insured them for €25,000, then, in the event of a claim, you insurer may look at the overall value of you contents, decide that you have only half-insured them, and, therefore, only pay for half the total damage involved...meaning the maximum you can receive from a claim is NOT €25,000; instead, only half that amount (€12,500) will be paid to you! (Yet another reason to ensure you have insured your home for the right amount!)