The entire subject of auto insurance is so complicated that it could be a major subject at a university. There are so many things that one needs to know before they opt for it. And if you drive, you won’t believe how often you’ll need your vehicle insurance. One such instance is when you need to get a report of your car’s insurance claim history. This report will detail all the claims that you’ve made during a period. So is it possible to check your car insurance claim history? It is, and it’s very easy.
There are two ways to check your car insurance claim history, and both offer very similar results. The first is by requesting a letter of experience and the second is by getting a Clue report. Let’s start with the former.
Letter of Experience
A letter of experience can be obtained from your current insurer and it is a report where the insurance company presents a detailed report of your insurance claims and other vital information. A Letter of Experience is like a letter of recommendation (if your claim history is great), where the insurance company vouches for your driving experience.
The letter of experience contains vital information such as how long you have been covered under the current insurance company, how many times you’ve made a claim, injuries, settlements, etc. This letter would be enough to check all your insurance claims in the past.
How to get it? Getting a letter of experience is easy and free. All you need to do is make a formal request to your insurance company either by visiting them or by making a call to their customer service team. It would also be better if you sent them an email to the company from your registered email address. The insurer might take seven days to send you the letter of experience and that’s it. Easy and free.
CLUE Report
If a letter of experience does not fulfill your requirements, then you should go for something more detailed and better; a CLUE report. If you have no “clue” what this report is, don’t worry, most people don’t. A CLUE report stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange and it’s a database that holds insurance claims history. It is produced by consumer reporting agency LexisNexis.
The reason why most people don’t know about CLUE is that it is majorly used by insurance companies. Whenever they get an application for vehicle insurance, they look at the CLUE report of the individual to get their claims history. If the person has made a significant number of claims and/or has a bad driving record, the company charges more money for both insurance price and premium rates.
A CLUE report is an ultimate report to know all your claims history. Even in the letter of experience, most of the data is taken from CLUE reports. So this would be enough to check all your car insurance claims in the past. So how do you get it?
Getting a CLUE report is also very easy and free of charge. Since it is maintained by LexisNexis, all you have to do is either call their toll-free number or just visit https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com. Fill out the necessary information and you’ll have your CLUE report sent to you in no time. But do note that you cannot access someone else’s CLUE report.
Claim or Inquiry
Let’s say you accessed your CLUE report to check your insurance claim history and see that the report shows a claim that you did not make. So how did it come up in the report? Is it an error? This is why you need to know the difference between a claim and an inquiry.
A claim is when you get in an accident and want to use your insurance coverage. This will be shown in your CLUE report. But what if you get in a minor car accident and then call your insurance company or the insurance agent and just discuss the accident? Well, here’s the shocker; even this call (inquiry) will be considered as a claim in the CLUE report.
So even if you called the company just to discuss the accident and you chose not to make a claim, you still get a claim on the report. This will lead to future issues as other insurance companies will see this as a claim (all insurance companies access your CLUE report before approving a request). So if they see more claims, the price of the insurance will be higher than normal, even from the companies that offer the cheapest average rates. Make sure to be a bit more careful before discussing an accident with your insurer.
Why Do You Need an Insurance Claim History?
A claim history might be needed for many reasons. The first is when you want to get a new auto insurance policy. Knowing beforehand your previous insurance claims will give you an idea about the prices you’ll be offered for the insurance.
You might also need to know the insurance claim history of a car that you might be buying from someone else. You can request the seller to give the CLUE report so that you can see how many times the car has been damaged.
The entire process of knowing your car insurance claim history is easy and free, and it takes just a few clicks to get a detailed report. So go ahead and get a free report for yourself.
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