Claims scenarios: from the weird to the mundane

Need to claim on your home insurance? You are not the only one

Surveys show that people are most likely to claim for damage to contents within their home. Stats would indicate that that's most likely to be caused by water ingress (or the roof or washing machine leaking in non-insurance speak). But we get quite a few calls for freezers breaking down, curtains going up in flames (we blame all those home improvement programmes that recommend using candles as mood lighting). And following a storm, claims for replacement phones, TVs or other electrical items that were fried by lightning.

It's really surprising to learn that a substantial number of claims are for loss or damage to personal belongings, so it's well worth adding this to your insurance cover if you are the sort of person that is liable to lose your wedding ring down the drain or leave your designer coat in a restaurant.

The huge claims, in money terms, are generally caused by fire or flood, and are often the most devastating to the people involved. In those cases an insurer will appoint a “incident manager” whose job it is to ensure that claimants' lives get put back together as soon as possible.

Burglaries, you may be glad to know, account for fewer and fewer claims, as people do more to protect their properties.

We also get the bizarre - a claim for damage caused by a leaking roof is pretty straightforward, but not that usual when the damage to the roof was caused by the downdraft of helicopter blades.

Claims services

It's all very well paying every month but the insurers really earn their worth when it comes to dealing with your claim. It's up to you who you insure with but you may like to ensure you receive the following service:-

• Claims lines open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (particularly after a major flood/fire incident)
• Automatic replacement of items for you through their network of suppliers, resulting in you getting back to normal quicker
• A networks of surveyors that can come out to your property

As with all services, you can shop around at renewal and perhaps get a cheaper price but ensure that the cover levels are adequate and the company has a good claims reputation and are available to help when you need them.

The Yahoo! House Price Centre is a free service from Yahoo! UK and Ireland that allows you to discover the price paid for residential property sold in England and Wales right back to april 2000, and in Scotland back to June 2003. This information is drawn from the publicly accessible Land Registries that record this information on behalf of the government.