Claiming on home insurance (water damage)

mrsj28

We had a water leak in our kitchen recently and some resulting water damage to the floor and a couple of kitchen units. Our insurer (Legal & General) will cover the cost of repairing the damage, less the excess we have to pay.

I was just wondering if anybody could advise on the impact this might have on future premiums for home insurance. It's the first time I've made a claim and am wondering if it will have a significant effect on next year's premium.

Our excess is high at £400 (it's £300 for everything else, but higher for water damage), the total cost of the repairs has been estimated at £800 so making a claim would save us £400 now, so I'm pretty sure it's worth making the claim!

I know nobody can give an exact answer, but would just be interested to hear of any similar experiences.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

HappyMJ

Try getting a new quote online adding the claim in and you should get an idea of what it will cost. Try different scenarios such as the claim is one year old then do it again with the claim now 2 years old to get an idea of future loading.

InsideInsurance

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mrsj28

Hi - thanks for the suggestions, I just did a couple of searches on GoCompare and the premium went up by about £30-£50 when I entered the claim (as if I had made the claim one year ago, two years ago).

I'll definitely claim for the damage this time as the impact is not too bad.

I think it's taught me a lesson about high excesses though... paying out £400 is going to be painful, but thankfully will not put us into debt.

Insurebore

Hi, if I was in your situation I would definitely proceed with the claim. Your Escape of Water loss is relatively small compared to most I come across that are similar scenarios. Even if you decided to withdraw your claim at this stage you would still have to disclose the loss as a withdrawn claim to future insurers which could still result in a small loading ( depending on who your insured with). You mentioned that you have already spoke to L&G about the claim which means it will now be on CUE database which all insurers have access to and if you dont tell future providers about the loss they may treat as non disclosure.As the loss is quite small you are unlikely to see a significant increase in premium and your claim less the excess should definitely work out more than the increase over the next few years. If you do have another similar incident ie another burst pipes/ escape of water claim you should definitely think this through before enquiring about claim as more than one loss of the same type is particularly unattractive and even if they are willing to cover you, they will load your premium.

Tygermoth

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mrsj28

Hi - just wanted to say thanks for the replies to this thread. We have gone ahead with the claim under the home insurance as it doesn't look like it'll affect the premium too much.

Thanks again