San Leandro,CA Hayward, CA Think Twice Before Turning In Small Insurance Claims

A friend called me this week and wanted to know if we could help him with his Homeowners Insurance.  His name is Eric and he said that the Insurance Company he had been with for years non-renewed his policy.  Since we are seeing a lot of non-renewals for California Homeowners Insurance, we told him that we would shop for him.  HIs home backed up to some open space and that is a problem these days as most insurance companies are diligently doing whatever it takes to avoid wildfire claims.  I was pleased to find that we had four insurance companies that would cover his home based on his difficult to insure location.

 We began working on the first quote and unfortunately received a declination.  What?  The address mapping system said this home would qualify BUT the quote was declined because of previous claims.  Not everyone knows or understands but the claims you make with your insurance company are available to all the insurance companies through a system called C.L.U.E.  CLUE stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange and insurance companies buy this data to help them underwrite or in this case decline quotes for policyholders that don’t meet the insurer underwriting guidelines.

We obtained a copy of Eric’s CLUE report and there were a few claims on it – most of them small – but the most recent claim was a water damage claim for over $25K.  Ironically, the one $25K claim was not the deal breaker, it was the several small claims that added up to “too many occurrences” as the reason why each of the four insurance companies declined to write Eric’s policy. As you can imagine, he was kicking himself for the $236 spoilage claim for items in the freezer and a few similar claims!

Next time you have a loss, make sure you consult with your insurance agent before filing the claim.