How to Check Your CLUE Report
Request it free from LexisNexis online or by phone, once a year, to see the claims history insurers are using against you.
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Why insurers pulled it
When you applied or renewed, the company checked your CLUE report for claims tied to the house, not just to you. Past water damage, even a small paid claim from a previous owner, can factor into a non-renewal even if you never filed anything.
What the report shows
Check every claim listed for the dates, cause, and amount paid. Reports sometimes include claims that were filed but never paid, or list the wrong property. Either one can make your house look riskier than it is to the next insurer.
If you find an error
LexisNexis has a dispute process separate from any insurance company. You submit what's wrong and they investigate, usually within 30 days. A corrected report matters most if you're about to apply elsewhere, since the new insurer will pull a fresh copy.
Shopping with a clean copy
Once you've seen what's on file, you can explain any claims upfront when you apply elsewhere, rather than let an insurer find them and guess. A report with no errors and a clear explanation for past claims moves an application along faster.
A non-renewal from one insurer doesn't mean every insurer will see your house the same way. Some weigh a past claim or the house's age differently, especially once you can explain what happened and show the CLUE report is accurate. Comparing options now, before the deadline on your letter, gives you a real shot at coverage priced on your house as it stands today.
What counts as a claim on your CLUE report
Not every call to an insurance company ends up on a CLUE report. What gets recorded is a claim, meaning money was paid out or a claim file was opened, even if the payment was small or the claim was later withdrawn. Calling to ask a general question about coverage, or getting an estimate without filing anything, usually doesn't show up. If you're trying to figure out why your report looks the way it does, the gap is often between what you remember as a phone call and what the insurer logged as a claim.
Two neighbors with similar houses can end up with very different reports. One filed a claim for storm damage and got a payment toward the repair. The other had the same storm damage but paid for repairs out of pocket and never called anyone. Only the first claim exists anywhere. The report isn't tracking damage to the house in general. It's tracking what insurers paid or opened a file for, which is narrower than what actually happened to the property over the years.
Water damage claims carry weight out of proportion to their size, because insurers have learned that one water claim often predicts another. A small payout for a slow leak under a sink can matter more to an underwriter than a larger payout for wind damage to a roof. Wind damage is usually a single event. Water damage can point to a plumbing or foundation issue that keeps recurring. If your report shows a water claim, it's worth knowing what caused it and whether it was fixed, since that's the question an underwriter is likely to ask even when the dollar amount looks minor.
Claims tied to the house stay on record for seven years from the date of loss, not from when you bought the house or when you're applying now. A claim filed by a previous owner five years before you bought the property can still show up and still factor into how an insurer prices your policy today. There's no way to shorten that window. What you can do is know it's there before an insurer brings it up, so the explanation comes from you instead of sounding like a surprise.
How long it takes to see the report
Requesting the report doesn't mean an instant download. Online requests through LexisNexis often return the report right away, sometimes within minutes, since the system pulls directly from what insurers have already filed. Phone requests can take longer, up to fifteen days in some cases, because someone has to process the request and mail or email the result. If a deadline from a non-renewal letter is close, requesting online gives the best chance of seeing the report in time to act on it.
The free copy is tied to a yearly limit, similar to how credit reports work. One free report every twelve months, per bureau, is the standard. Pulling it once to check for errors and then needing a second copy a few months later, because a new insurer wants a fresh one, might mean paying a small fee for the second pull. Checking the report before applying anywhere new avoids pulling it twice in a short span.
The report itself lists the property address, the policyholder's name, and each claim by date, type, and amount paid. It does not include a credit score or a summary judgment about whether the house is a good risk. That judgment is something each insurer makes on its own, using the raw claims history as one input among several, including the roof's age, the house's wiring, and where it sits. Two insurers looking at the same CLUE report can reach different conclusions about the same house.
If the report comes back with nothing on it, that's worth knowing too. A clean CLUE report doesn't guarantee approval from a new insurer, since non-renewal can happen for reasons that never show up as a claim, like a roof nearing the end of its expected life or an insurer pulling back from writing new policies in the area. But a clean report does rule out one common reason for higher prices, and it's one less thing to explain when applying elsewhere.
Before you apply again
Pull your CLUE report now if you haven't. Check the date on your non-renewal letter against how long a correction might take. Apply with an accurate report and an explanation ready for anything on it.
