Some say that once you’ve taken out car or home insurance, you’ve nailed the art of adulting. If you take out both, then you get some sort of award. But the true test, in our opinion, is when it comes time to claim. If you’ve never claimed before and you’ve insured with a company that doesn’t care 2 jots about how you fare during the process, then yes. It’s a horrid affair.
But it doesn’t have to be. There are some insurance companies who care about your claims experience and want you to be able to use the policy for which you’ve been paying. It might not sound true, but we can assure you that it is. We’ll even give you a few tips on how to find that kind of insurer at the end.
First, however, we’ve got the tips you need to know about putting in an insurance claim successfully. Because whether you’re involved in a car accident or your home contents are destroyed… Knowing what to do makes all the difference.
Who you call matters… A lot
If you haven’t already got your insurer’s number saved, then do it now, because you need to call them ASAP. It’s the very first thing to do apart from getting in touch with medical services, if necessary, because obviously #health and #wellbeing is more important than insurance.
But then the next call is to your insurer so that they can help you with what will happen next. Like if you’re reporting a car accident, they’ll dispatch their approved tow services which gives you the confidence and authority to turn away other offers of ‘help’. Under no circumstances whatsoever should you give permission to any old tow service, because then you’ll be responsible for the costs and it could jeopardise your claim.
After your insurer, you need to call the cops, especially if it’s crime-related, like a break-in. If you’re not sure whether to alert the authorities, you can ask your insurer when you call them. Not only is it often a legal requirement to call the police, but they’ll supply you with case numbers and what-have-you which your insurer will need to process your claim.
It also matters when you make the call
The success of your insurance claim is often tied to the timing of when you report the incident to your insurer and to the police. While the timing of when you report these incidents differs between insurance companies (cue the reason why you need to read your policy docs), we can say with certainty that hi-jackings, thefts and break-ins, and car accidents should be disclosed within 24 hours to both your insurance company and the police.
Claims for other personal items should be made known to your insurer no more than 30 days after the incident.
Get the paperwork in order… And avoid the run-around
The last tip is about all the info that you need to gather in order to speed up the insurance claim process. Don’t give your insurance company any reason to delay proceedings.
From the police, you’ll need:
- The police report.
- Case number.
- Officer’s statement and details.
- Any other relevant info.
Other info that you might need:
- If there’s been a robbery, then a list of stolen items with their value.
- Details of third parties and witnesses.
- Pictures of the incident.
- If there’s been an accident, then a completed accident report form will certainly help you make sure that everything’s noted.
So, why do claims get rejected?
Honestly, claims are rejected for any number of reasons. It could have been that the person claiming hadn’t read through their policy docs properly and is claiming for things that aren’t covered, or they gave their insurer the wrong info and aren’t properly insured, or they waited too long to issue their claim, or were intoxicated/behaved recklessly during the incident, or they admitted their guilt…
The reasons are endless.
What’s the answer?
What helps is being insured with a company that cares about you and takes a positive interest in making sure that your policy will pay out when it needs to. But this means that you need to do your research and insure with a company that promises to do these things. The best way to find out is to go online and look at their website, social media, insurance forums, and review sites to verify whether the company has a good track record of paying out claims, whether they’ve won awards for good service, what their values are, and what others have to say about them.
Most importantly, go to their website and download their policy docs (if you can). Obviously we don’t mean for you to go through the whole PDF with a magnifying glass… But you can skim it and see how they talk to you. You should be able to tell in the first 2 mins if they’ve made it easy for you to understand your cover with them.
Are you interested in insuring with a company who meets all these requirements? Then click here for a commitment-free car and home insurance quote today. You won’t be disappointed!