Insurance, Claims & Accidents

Archive for the ‘Insurance Claims’ Category

Every travel insurance contract is unique, so the information provided below is only of a general nature. You have to scrutinize your contract to make sure whether a particular event will be covered or not.

The most important exception is usually a pre-existing condition. This is any illness for which you have received medical treatment a specified time before you bought the travel insurance policy. Even if you haven’t received treatment yet, but you were diagnosed by a medical doctor, the condition will still not be covered.

You can not, for example, visit your doctor because you feel bad, be diagnosed with a serious disease and then fly overseas so you can claim the cost of the treatment from the travel insurance company.

There are some insurers that do cover the cost of pre-existing conditions, but then only if you divulged the condition on your application form. There will usually be restrictions and the cost of such a policy will be higher than normal.

Other conditions and events normally not covered include injuries you inflict on yourself, pregnancy, giving birth, participating in dangerous sports such as bungee jumping and scuba diving, being involved in a crime and wars.

It needs to be noted that simply travelling to a country for which the Department of Foreign Affairs has issued a travel warning may constitute a breach of the conditions of your travel insurance policy and your claims will therefore not be entertained. It’s therefore wise to check the list of countries for which travel warnings have been issued before you leave.

In a recent survey by one of the biggest insurance comparison websites it was found that houses with the number 243 are the most likely, out of a range of house numbers, to make an insurance claim.  Number 243 is followed by number 201, and number 1, while numbers 190, 240, 241, 221, 217, 218 and 121 are also subject to higher than average insurance claims.  Homes with the number 13 are nowhere near the top of the list.

However home insurance claims are dominated by loss and accidental damage, with break-ins and theft accounting for only one quarter of insurance claims.  So it is unlikely that there is anything significant to number 243, other than a statistical anomaly.  It may be more reasonable to ask whether home contents insurance is more or less important depending on the area in which a home is, as some areas are more prone to crime than others.

Regardless of the risk of theft, it is always a good idea to have comprehensive home contents insurance.  Even those living in the most remote and crime-free areas are still at risk of damage caused by fire, flooding or other adverse events.  Contents insurance from a good home insurance provider will be able to compensate for any such damage.

If you live in a high risk area you should keep the higher likelihood that you may claim in mind when you compare home insurance policies.  Those in high risk areas should avoid buying policies with high excess payments and should avoid policies where there are limits on the number of claims you can make in any given period.

If you are looking only for contents insurance, for example if you are renting, it is a good idea to take into consideration the difference between replacement cover and normal cover.  The latter will only pay for the amount the item is worth at the time of loss/breakage.  It will not pay out the same amount as you paid for it, rather what someone else would have paid for it at the time of the damage.  If your TV is old and even worse, old fashioned, it is not likely to have sold for a substantial amount.  While it was good enough for your needs, the amount you get back will more than likely not be enough to buy another, newer set.
 
Replacement cover, though about ten per cent more expensive than its cheaper counterpart, will allow you to do this.  Certainly for electronics you will receive a model similar to the old one, but updated.  If your old TV is no longer in production (a possible scenario bearing in mind the fast paced world of technology) then the next best thing will be what you receive.
 
When assessing your belongings in reference to which cover you should choose, it is worth mentioning collectables.  You may not be able to live without your iPod, but this can be replaced with relative ease.  If you own a first edition Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in hardback however, an actual value insurance policy will pay as handsomely for it as a fan of the books would.

Considering what you have in your home you wish to protect with the policy is a must before taking one out.

It’s always a good idea to take out comprehensive insurance to cover the structure and contents of your home, as buying a house is probably the single biggest investment you’re ever likely to make and protecting it makes sense.

In fact, if you take out a mortgage, as most of us have, a then condition of getting the loan at all will be to take out buildings insurance, as the lender will want to protect their investment just as much as you do.

Contents insurance is also a must, though not compulsory. The lender really won’t care about your personal possessions, only the building itself. It is still a good idea to protect your non-fixed possessions such as furniture, clothing, and jewellery against damage and loss.

The cheapest type of contents insurance is indemnity cover, which will replace the items with items of the same type and age. But the vast majority of homeowners opt to pay slightly more on the premium for the standard ‘new for old’ cover, which will get brand new replacements for lost or damaged items.

The events that cause the damage to the house’s structure, and those responsible for loss and damage to property must be shown to have been beyond your control. You can add extra coverage to the basic plan to extend the protection, such as covering accidental damage caused by yourself, or damage to pipes. These will increase the premium.

Nobody likes to pay home insurance premiums in case some unlikely event occurs, but in the case of home contents insurance and home buildings insurance it makes sense to have them in place.

Filing a home insurance claim should not be a trial. You will have already been through enough, assessing damage and trying to figure out what to do next. If you take a few steps to prepare for any potential disaster filing a claim will be much less painful than if you are caught unawares.

There are some things you should know about home insurance (and contents insurance) regardless of the company. I learned some of this the hard way, so I am hoping that I can save you the same headache. I was relatively well versed on various types of household insurance before I signed a policy. However, some things have changed since I purchased my last policy and I was caught off guard when it came to filing my claim. Here are some tips to help you be better prepared than I was.
   
First of all, take pictures of everything before and after it gets damaged. I know that the “before” part sounds ridiculous, but it seems that home insurance providers demand photographs of every item that was damaged, not just snapshots of the overall damage. You will also need to make a list of the items, purchase price and market value of each. This is much easier to do by saving receipts and adding an item to the master list as you go. Also take into consideration that Christmas and other special occasion gifts should be added to the list so that you can be sure they are also covered under your buildings and contents insurance coverage.