What Is a Claims History?
A record of past insurance claims on you and your house, usually five to seven years, that insurers check.
Free to compare
An insurer pulled this history before deciding to drop you or raise your price. They order a report, usually through a service called CLUE, that lists every claim filed on the house, including ones from a previous owner, and every claim you've filed anywhere, even at a past address. Two claims in a short span, especially water damage, often trigger non-renewal regardless of how small the payouts were. You can request your own copy of that report and check it against what you remember before applying elsewhere.
Insurers don't all weigh that record the same way. Some decline anyone with two claims in five years. Others look at what the claims were for, or ignore anything older than three years. A non-renewal from one company doesn't mean the next sees your history the same way, and the price for the same coverage can differ widely. Checking what else is available costs nothing before the deadline on that letter arrives.
Does calling your insurer to ask about coverage count as a claim?
Not usually, but it can. A claim is a request for payment that gets logged against the house. A phone call where you ask what your deductible is or whether a certain repair would be covered, without ever filing, typically doesn't show up on your record. Some insurers do log these as a contact, so if you're unsure whether a past call turned into a filed claim, that's worth checking in the report rather than assuming it was only a question.
The report also follows the house, not just you. If a previous owner filed two claims for roof damage before selling, those can still show up and still factor into how a new insurer prices or declines coverage, even though you never filed anything yourself. This is one reason a house with an otherwise clean history from your side can still draw a higher price or a decline. Asking a seller for their claims history before closing, or pulling the report on an address you're considering, catches this before it becomes your problem.
A claim that was later withdrawn, denied, or paid for entirely out of pocket after the insurer opened a file can still appear on the record. What matters to most insurers is that a claim was filed and investigated, not necessarily that money changed hands. If you called about storm damage, an adjuster came out, and you decided to pay for the repair yourself, that visit may still be logged. This is a common surprise for people who assumed only paid-out claims count against them.
Errors do happen in these reports, a claim listed twice, one attributed to the wrong address, or one that should have aged off after seven years but didn't. Disputing an error is done through the reporting service, not through the insurer that turned you down, and it can take time to correct. Getting a copy of the report early, before you're deep into applying elsewhere, gives room to fix a mistake before it costs you a better rate.
How long does a claim actually stay on your record?
Most claims drop off after seven years, but that number comes from the reporting service, not from any single insurer. Some insurers only look back five years when they price a policy, even though the full seven years are sitting in the report. Others look at the whole seven. This means a claim from year six might affect you at one company and barely register at another. There is no way to know which approach a given insurer uses without applying or asking directly.
The clock starts on the date the claim was filed, not the date it closed. A roof claim that took eight months to settle still counts from when you first called it in. If a water damage claim from six years and ten months ago is still showing up, that is normal. It has not aged off yet, and it will stay visible for a few more months.
Filing a claim and then having it closed with no payout does not reset or remove it early. The claim still shows as filed and investigated, even if the insurer decided not to pay anything. The seven-year window applies the same way whether the payout was large, small, or zero. This surprises people who assume a denied or withdrawn claim gets treated as if it never happened.
Once a claim does age off, it is supposed to disappear from new reports pulled after that date. If an old insurer's internal file still references it when calculating a renewal price, that is a separate issue from the public report, and worth raising directly with that company. A report pulled fresh from the reporting service is the one other insurers will see, so checking that copy is the more useful way to confirm what has actually aged off.
Before that deadline passes
Pull your own CLUE report and check it against what you remember filing. If anything looks wrong or outdated, a fresh quote shows how another insurer reads the same history.
