When you make a claim on your home and contents insurance policy, you must present as much evidence of the incident as possible. There are two common ways of submitting a claim: by phone or online.
If an incident occurs at your property, make sure you:
Let’s assume you have home and contents insurance, but your home was broken into while you were away. Valuables such as your flat screen TV and laptop were stolen. What should you do next?
Once you’ve witnessed the incident, you should file a claim with your home and contents insurance provider. To start a claim process, you need to go through the following list.
The first step requires filing a police report as soon as possible. This will help your policy provider validate your claim. In some cases, you may not be able to make a claim if you don’t report the incident to authorities within 24 hours.
The next step involves getting in touch with your home and contents insurer and letting them know about the incident. Explain what has happened in as much detail as possible. Along with your verbal explanation, you will need to provide full documentation of the incident. Also, make sure you bring all receipts related to your damaged or stolen property, and your insurance policy.
Filing a claim involves collecting all reports of the incident and following the instructions your insurer has given you. You can file a claim by post, fax, email, or online.
After you have lodged a claim, your insurer may get in touch to let you know how your claim is progressing. Alternatively, they can also provide you with access to an online claims centre so you can track the progress at any time.
Don’t hesitate to call your insurer and request an update when you need to. Remember that insurer compliance is monitored by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
While insurance claims are generally a streamlined process, they may not always go according to plan. If that is the case and you feel that your claim was wrongfully denied or not paid out in full, you can lodge a dispute with the AFCA.