Question on Home insurance claim

SimpleQuestions · 10-09-2024 10:53am #1

Hi all,

If my home was damaged and I submitted a claim and the insurance sent its assessor out to review the damage. I would then send in a cost of X as provided by a QS, to which the assessor agrees with.

Now the assessor releases 90% of the claimed amount to my account and said that on receipt of invoices\photos, the remaining 10% would be released.

Now lets say, I find the cost of repairs are less than that of the initial submission (due to discount, reduced cost of materials, etc.) and I end up not needing the remaining 10% of the claim…do I still need to go back to the assessors with invoices\photos\etc.?

Also, would I need to repay back any money which I did not spend as part of the fixing of the issues?

Eggs For Dinner · 11-09-2024 6:33am

You cannot make a profit from an insurance claim , so you would need to refund any costs not incurred. Insurers retain portions of a claim for 2 reasons. Firstly to ensure repairs are carried out to the specification claimed for and, secondly, in case the final tally comes in lower that first anticipated.

In reality, the insurer will just not release the retained amount without supporting invoices. Should you have a subsequent claim and there is evidence you didn't effect repairs to the standard previously claimed for, you can expect trouble

Jim2007 · 11-09-2024 7:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058368389/question-on-home-insurance-claim

The assessors are professionals who do this everyday, so they will have encountered this scenario before and most like their computer systems will include the ability to highlight such activity. So you can expect that they will follow up on it.

Furthermore the objective of the insurance is to restore you to the position you were in before the event happened, so you can fully expect they'll require you to pay back any "profit" that might arise. If they did not it would provide big motivation for insurance fraud.

[In a past life I worked on the design of a system for one of the major European REinsurance firms targeted at identifying Irish people who used a combination of Irish and English names, dates of birth and address to over insure, so you can expect that they have pretty sophisticated systems in place]

SimpleQuestions · 11-09-2024 9:37am

Thanks for the responses - at the other end, i would expect that if I return any unused money this should be taken into account when my policy is renewing as I am losing my no claims bonus due to this claim

Jim2007 · 11-09-2024 4:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122604485#Comment_122604485

No, as already stated you can't make a profit out of insurance, they were always entitled to get the excess back. If you get something, great but I would not count on it.

Eggs For Dinner · 12-09-2024 6:25am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122604485#Comment_122604485

But you still made a claim. The "no claim" bonus will be affected

Question on Home insurance claim

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