Chosen by Asker

Natural disasters are something over which you have no control. Therefore, they cannot actually raise your rates for that. However, if you are in an area which is prone to natural disasters, your rates will be higher than in areas not so prone to natural disasters. Also, the amount of claims filed one year will impact how much insurance will cost following years. (Not just your claims, but the claims of everyone in the area.) If there is a year when there were a lot of disasters (like 2008 was in the midwest) the rates for all people in the area that experienced a lot of loss will go up in following years. (Market demand also has an impact on cost of insurance, but that is another matter entirely.) This whole rate stuff is figured out by independent bureaus that are overseen by the government. If there isn't so much in the way of claims in a given year, the rates will go down for following years. If you have a lot of claims due to things that could have been avoided, you can be charged more for your insurance or just nonrenewed. Like if you don't take care of your property and a people get injured because of your failure to maintain your property you can have your rates raised or your insurer can tell you he won't renew your coverage for the following year. Since you are talking about hurricane damage, if your damage was significant, you should file. For a few years, we kept losing parts of the roof off of our house because of windstorms, and our insurance did not raise significantly because of it. ***Note*** Just how much does Badkitty pay for homeowners insurance per year? Does she live in a huge mansion? She is talking about having a claim free discount that saves her more per year than my homeowners policy costs per year. In fact, it sounds like she is saving about as much per year in claim free discount as I pay for homeowners, auto (on 2 vehicles) and umbrella per year. I am glad I don't pay her insurance bill!

by Jo

5 months ago

Asker's Rating: 

It is true that they cannot "raise" your premium for a ND claim but you very well could lose any claims free discount you may have on the policy which could be several hundreds of dollars and cause a large increase at your next renewal.

by Badkitty- 5 months ago

I'm in Houston. Here's the deal: Your policy can't be surcharged or directly penalized for a cat claim (catastrophe). HOWEVER. If an underwriter is trying to decide if they should accept your application or not, that claim can tip the decision for them. My rule of thumb, is don't file SMALL claims, regardless of the cause.

by mbrcatz- 5 months ago

tolong ... tolong ... tolong ... tolong ... tolong ...

by Bill Gates- 5 months ago