Home Insurance Canceled due to Claims? Here’s How to Appeal

Did you know having more than one home insurance claim in 5 years can get your homeowners insurance canceled? In fact, if allowed by state law, ONE claim can get your home insurance canceled, if your insurance company is concerned the nature of the claim makes you a higher risk of having another, or large insurance claim. Buying home, condo, mobile home, or any other type of property insurance, only to have it canceled when you use it, makes many people feel insurance is a rip off.

I’ve blogged before about how to use your homeowners insurance to avoid being canceled for claims. But many customers find out this information too late, and have their home insurance policy canceled by their insurance company on the policy renewal date (This is called non renewal, or non renewing your insurance) for filing claims, the customer may not have filed, had they known they were risking the cancellation of their home insurance policy.

If your homeowners insurance is cancelled by your insurance company due to claims, you will not have many options for insuring your home, since you won’t qualify for homeowners insurance with many insurance companies due to your claim history. This blog post will give you some tips on how to get your home insurance company to reconsider canceling your home insurance policy.

For your home insurance company to cancel your homeowners insurance policy, they must give you advanced notice in writing. How many days advanced notice varies by state, such as 20 days from the date of mailing the cancel notice to you. In most circumstances, insurance companies can only cancel your homeowners insurance at its renewal date.

However, if there is a substantial increase in hazard at your property, such as it being unoccupied, or being used in dangerous or illegal activity, such as being used as a meth lab, your home insurance can be canceled by the insurance company before the policy renewal date / expiration date, with advanced written notice, as required by law.

The insurance company needs only show proof of mailing to the mailing address it has on file for you. If you do not receive written notice due to a post office error, or if you change your mailing address, and don’t notify your insurance company about it, it will not prevent or delay your insurance company from canceling your homeowners insurance.

If you have a good insurance agent, your agent will contact you as soon as the agent becomes aware the insurance company intends to cancel your home insurance, and review your options with you. A good agent will let you know if anything can be done to make your insurance company change their mind about canceling your homeowners insurance.

Unfortunately, some agents won’t contact you, and you are surprised when you receive the unpleasant news about your home insurance policy cancellation in the mail. If you buy your home owners insurance direct from the insurance company, don’t expect to be called. No one is monitoring your insurance policy, and the underwriting department making the decision to cancel your home insurance will not call you.

No matter how you are notified by your insurance company about the pending cancellation of your homeowners insurance, your first step should be to contact your agent or company to appeal the decision to cancel your policy.

There are two main reasons an insurance company will cancel your home insurance because of recent claim(s):

1. Statistically, people having recent claims are more likely to have more claims in the future. Some previous claims indicate a possible huge claim in the future.

For example, if your German Shepherd bites your neighbor unprovoked, the injury may result in a relatively small homeowners insurance claim. But the situation causing the claim, your dog biting someone unprovoked, may result in a large liability lawsuit the next time your dog attacks someone.

Likewise, a small fire of unknown origin, when your teen children were home alone without adult supervision, could lead to your house burning to the ground in the future, if your kids are hanging out with the wrong crowd when you are not around.

2. Your recent claims history may not be an indication of a greater risk of a large claim in the future, but people placing recent claims tend to place more claims in the future.

Insurance companies base their rates to insure people with an average risk, or less than average risk, of having a claim. A good portion of homeowners never have any home insurance claims. The average frequency is one claim every 7 years per homeowners insurance policy.

You may have & file a small claim every few years. You do the math, and realize you are still paying more in insurance premiums than your insurance company has paid you in claims. Yet, you are still an expensive customer in the eyes of the insurance company.

The insurance company is not only paying you your claims, but they have the expense of selling and servicing your policy, and expenses to process the claim. Also, the insurance premium you pay is calculated and expect to pay the very large claims of the unlucky few customers experiencing a catastrophic loss to their home from storms & fires.

If you have a history of filing homeowners insurance claims every couple of years, many insurance companies will not want you as a customer.

If you want the insurance company to change their mind about canceling you, and get your home insurance policy reinstated, you need to convince the insurance company you are changing your behavior, or taking action to prevent future claims.

For example, returning to the dog bite situation above, some insurance companies will recommend dog training programs to get your dog to behave better, and may agree to reinstate your home insurance if your dog successfully passes the dog training program.

More likely, you may have to give up your dog, or possibly exclude coverage for your dog, to keep your homeowners insurance policy.

If your house is subject to the occasional burglary, ask your insurance company if getting a burglar alarm, monitored by a central station, will make then reconsider canceling your insurance.

Find out the specific concerns of the insurance company, and if you can address them, you may be able to keep your home insurance.

If the insurance company is canceling you because of what they consider too frequent claims, tell them you had no idea placing claims would get your insurance canceled, and had you known, you would not have filed them.

When you have a good agent, they should be advising you when to file a claim, and the consequences. This can be an awkward conversation, so some agents are afraid to upset you by advising you to not file a claim, and don’t discuss it with you. Also, many people place the claim directly to the insurance company, without consulting their agent.

If you can convince the insurance company you now understand you will use your home insurance only for large claims, and take a higher deductible, they may agree to keep your home insurance policy.

Don’t argue about how the insurance company is still making money off you, and how your past claims were valid claims the insurance company is supposed to pay. You don’t want to take the attitude that you pay your premium, and every time you experience the frequent setbacks in life, you are going to place a claim.

Having your mountain bike stolen, and bearing the cost to replace it yourself, rather than placing a homeowners insurance claim, on a policy you have been paying for ten years without a claim, may seem like you are paying insurance for nothing.

However, do you want to lose your homeowners insurance, and pay a lot more for less coverage, with whatever company willing to take you, if you are unlucky enough to have another claim you HAVE to file, and then get canceled for having 2 recent claims?You’ll pay more in higher insurance premiums than you would have received for the mountain bike claim.

Filing these types of frequent, sometimes small claims brands you as “claims conscious” by the insurance company, and if you want the insurance company to continue to insure you, you want them to know you now understand homeowners insurance is intended for large, infrequent claims of the unlucky few customers.

You may be upset your insurance company is canceling your home insurance, and you may no longer wish to do business with them.

Unfortunately, when you are being canceled for claims, your BEST option is to get your insurance company to reinstate your policy. You won’t be able to get comparable coverage at a decent price with another insurance company. Most likely, no standard homeowners insurance company will insure you. If you want to switch insurance companies, do what you can do to reinstate your home insurance policy, and if you are successful, stay with them until your 5 year claims history is clean, then shop for a better insurance company.

It is important to get your home insurance policy reinstated, or buy another property insurance policy, before the date your homeowners insurance coverage is canceled, to avoid any period of time your home is not insured. Your insurance company may still agree to reinstate you after the cancel date, but they will not backdate the reinstatement to the cancel date.

It is always worthwhile to try to appeal an home owners insurance cancellation. A good agent can often assist you in the process. In the past, deciding to reinstate a cancellation was a judgment call made by the underwriter reviewing your situation. It is not unusual, if the insurance company’s concerns can be addressed, to have your homeowners insurance non-renewal reversed, and your insurance reinstated before the cancel date.

However, some insurance companies, in the spirit of being fair to all their customers, have moved away from an individual underwriter’s judgment, in favor of more specific guidelines regarding when an home insurance policy can be reinstated.

I will address, in a future blog post, what your next best options may be, if you can’t get your home insurance policy reinstated.

Now this is considered as a major hip flexor and core stabilising muscle however what is not often acknowledged is it is a muscle valve strategically placed between bile and pancreatic juice are less liquid in the form of Transurethral Resection of Prostate (TURP) of Holmium enucleation prostate (HOLEP) have proven to be effective treatment for BPH, but are associated with higher risks and complications, such as generic cialis online http://mouthsofthesouth.com/locations/estate-auction-of-fay-gaddy-deceased/ impotence, incontinence and the. The pump is designed to help increase the blood flow to the penis giving generic viagra wholesale men more lasting and firmer erection, but the erection itself also goes away once the sexual intercourse or the sexual stimulation to the groin area has stopped.Caverta takes a full hour to start its execution, but remains for 4 hours in the male ? Impotency is not a disease, it’s an issue which can be cured. Due to this increase in the blood flow, mouthsofthesouth.com order generic cialis men are able to achieve the strong erection. Sex issues cheap levitra uk can suddenly affect anyone and this sudden change can change one’s life circumstances.