Quote:
Originally Posted by sailorboy1
I have owned boats for 13 years, a 39' and a 41'. In this period, which includes almost 6 years of full time on the boat, I have had no boat accidents and ZERO insurance claims.
So it really pisses me off that all the insurance companies seem to care about is whether I have had a claim in the last 3 years. What kind of measurement of being safe is just 3 years? I feel like I am paying for those people who have have had claims in the last 3-10 years.
I feel the same about car insurance. I have over 30 years of zero claims there and again all they care is the last 3 years.
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SailorBoy, wow, many, many years without an
accident or incident. Sounds like your good fortune is about to run out, lightening strikes, storm damage and whale allusions tend to even out eventually, or so would say the actuator.
As to claims
history, each insurance company retains their own records of your claims with them, but almost all of them also share their data to third party claims
history companies so that every insurance company knows your history.
One such database is the Claims Loss Underwriting Exchange, which is run by LexisNexis. Information that can be included in reports includes your name, your date of birth, your policy number, the claim number, the claim details, fault determination, the payout on the claim, the date of the loss, and other information may also be located on the
record.
Most insurance companies will tend to review claims history within 6 to 10 years past to provide a gauge for assessment of risk categorization. Some will review further back.
If an applicant does not provide disclosure of a claim and the insurance company notes a claim in the shared history databases that will become a red flag and likely lead to a denial of policy, and of course, it can lead to a denial of a claim that may be made in the future during the policy coverage period.
Since people tend to have short term memories, many insurance companies will only ask about recent claim histories. "To the best of my recollection . . . becomes an issue as whether an application is fraudulent or just forgetful. In either case, a non-disclosure of a claim is an inaccuracy / untruth and places the policy in a tenuous position of being denied, of made void upon making a claim.
An insurance company is free to accept an underwriting of a risk or to not accept an underwriting based on their practice and policies. If they don't, just move on to another that may desire to underwrite. Sometimes one simply can't obtain an underwriting and one has to then incur the risk without any degree of policy protection or which has considerable limits to the risk exposure assignments.
It is a negotiation which has a great deal of specificity and complexity. Most people are rather clueless when it comes to understanding what is and what is not covered by standard policies.