Why Your Fire Claim Got Refused

If you've had to go through the unfortunate experience of a home fire, we send our apologies. It's one of the worst experiences to have, to feel like your home that you've worked hard for and you've been paying off has now literally burned to the ground around you.

One of the first things that you'll advise to do after a fire has dissipated is to make sure that you are filing a fire damage claim with your home insurance company. Your belongings are gone, your house is in the worst possible shape. 

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So you file the claims that you should be claiming, only to find that your insurer is either denying your claim or severely underpaying it. Fire damage services can help you with the report for your home as well as helping you to rebuild it, but a lot of insurance will work hard to find any excuse possible to underpay or deny a claim even after a house fire.

It may sound like it's something out of a Black Mirror episode, but sometimes insurers are not there on your side. Understanding why it's happened can help you to get yourself moving forward, so let's take a look at some of the top reasons why your fire claim got refused.

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You Didn't Have Enough Coverage

Sometimes a particular type of fire isn't covered in a policy. You are not covered for every single type of fire out there. So you need to make sure that your policy is covering all types. Your policy should not just cover damage directly caused by flames or smoke. It should also cover the water damage from fire sprinklers.

Making sure that you're covered for all aspects of a fire is very important. Take care of this in advance so that you don't have to worry about having your claim denied.

They suspect there is fraud or arson happening

Some claims are denied because fire has happened as a result of somebody deliberately setting fire to your property and they believe that somebody was you. Suspected fraud or arson is a typical way for a claim to be denied, and the insurance company may try to prove that the insured person in your home set the fire intentionally to make that claim.

It's important to make sure that you have the experience representation on your side as quickly as possible here because the last thing you need on top of dealing with the fire and the aftermath of that is to then not have the funds to restore it.

The damage is being disputed

Because not every fire insurance policy covers damages outside of the fire itself, you have to consider that the damage that you include in your report is solely related to the fire.

If you have not added everything onto the list, or that you've put much of the damage into your home down to the fire when actually it's been something else, they may not fulfill your claim.

These are just three reasons to be mindful of – what else can you think of?

This is a contributed post.

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