We all think that we will never have to file a claim to our car insurer, but accidents happens, and when we suffer an accident, we want to be covered by our comprehensive insurance policy. The question is quite simple: What to do if your comprehensive insurance claim is denied? That can be frustrating and even stressful sometimes, we already suffered an accident, and we only want to turn back to our normal life as soon as possible.
That’s why it’s important you understand your options and use them to ensure you receive the coverage you deserve. In this article, we will explore what you can do if your comprehensive insurance claim is denied.
Understanding Comprehensive Insurance Coverage
Before we explain the reasons about what to do if your comprehensive insurance claim is denied, let’s talk about what comprehensive insurance really covers. Comprehensive insurance coverage protects your vehicle against non-collision damages such as, theft, vandalism, fires, flood, natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, hails), falling objects (tree branches, rocks, debris), even animal-related damages (hitting deer, rodents that bites your vehicle’s electrical wires).
However, there are some gray coverage areas in each car insurer’s comprehensive coverage policy, so I recommend you to read carefully what your policy covers and what not before filing any claim.
Remember, all lenders will request you to add comprehensive insurance coverage along with collision coverage when financing your vehicle.
Reasons for a Denied Comprehensive Insurance Claim
Car insurers may find many reasons why your comprehensive insurance claim may be denied. The most common reasons are the flowing below:
Your policy doesn’t cover that damage: Your comprehensive insurance policy won’t cover collision damages, as explained above, comprehensive insurance only protects your cover against non-collision damages. You can read my post related to this possible comprehensive insurance claim denial: What is Not Covered in your Comprehensive Car Insurance?
You due your payments: If you have not paid your insurance premium on time, your insurance company will deny your claim. You can read more about this claim denial reason in this post: When is my car insurance due and what to do next?
Misrepresentation: If you filed your claim wrongly, or you provided wrongly information when filing your claim, your car insurer will also deny your claim.
Exclusions: Your comprehensive insurance policy may have specific exclusions that prevent coverage for certain types of damage. Some common comprehensive coverage exclusions are about water damage, your comprehensive insurance policy will cover water damage from floods, but may not cover water damage from a broken water pipe.
Policy limits: If the damage to your vehicle exceeds your policy limit, your insurance company may deny your claim. You can read more about your comprehensive coverage limits in this post: Understanding Comprehensive Coverage Car Insurance Limits
What can you do if Your Claim is Denied?
If your comprehensive insurance claim is denied, don’t panic, you still can turn that denial into an approved claim, here are some steps you can take:
Review Your Policy
First, check the declaration page of your comprehensive insurance policy. The reason to review this page is to know if that denial is justified or not. Check the way your policy explains what is covered and what not. You must be sure that damage is not excluded from your coverage. After reading everything in the declaration page of your policy, you believe your claim should have been approved, you can contact your car insurer and discuss the denial.
I wrote a post about this topic:
How to Handle Disputes with Your Comprehensive Insurance Provider
Gather Evidence
If you believe that your claim was unjustly denied, gather as much evidence as possible to support your dispute against your car insurer. This could include photos of the damage to your vehicle, the police report, any witness statements, and your own adjuster’s expert way to see the accident.
File an Appeal
Once you have everything ready to start a dispute against your car insurer, you only have to file an appeal with your car insurer. Each car insurance company policy has a way or a website where you can follow all the procedures for filing a written notice where you can contest that car insurance claim denial.
This will take a while until your car insurer takes a decision, I strongly recommend you to add the more information about the accident you can, pictures/videos, witnesses’ testimonies, anything that can support your appeal will help you.
Consider Hiring an Attorney
If your car insurer keeps denying your claim, you should consider hiring an attorney who can spot that denial as an act of bad faith from part of your car insurer. You still can spot it this from some common evidences from part of your car insurer:
If you see your car insurer communicates so less or nothing with you.
When your car insurer’s investigation is not the appropriate one.
When your car insurer gives you no legitimate reason why of the claim denial.
Conclusion
I know, we all feel frustrated when your car insurer denies our claim, we must understand why our car insurer denied it. The first thing think is why our car insurer denied our claim, perhaps that sort of damage is not covered, we didn’t pay the last insurance payment, or the damages of our accident exceeds the limit of our coverage.
Even so, we still can appeal it. We must gather as much information and documents about the accident as we can (pictures, videos, witnesses, police reports), it’s good time to review the declaration page of our policy, just in case. Follow the steps from your car insurer’s website to appeal that denial.
If your car insurer keeps denying your claim, you should ask an attorney who is specialized in car insurance laws to help you fight this denial.
Other readers were also interested in the following posts:
How to Prevent Fraud in Comprehensive Insurance Claims
Tips for negotiating with an insurance adjuster for a comprehensive claim
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