The Duty to Report Losses or Accidents requires you to file a claim as soon as you learn about the accident.

This can be as little as 30 days. Many insurance companies do not enforce this very often, read why.

Duty to Report Losses:

Your Duty to Report Losses is triggered as soon as you learn or should have learned (through due care) that a loss has occurred. Insurance companies will outline how many days you have to file the claim; usually 30 days form the day of discovery.

If you have a car accident, then the day that the loss occurred is very clear (at least for the property damage). However, there are situations where you will not find that your damages where caused by the actions of another party. This is common when you have preexisting injuries and you do not know if the accident in question aggravated the injury or not.

Above I mentioned �should have learned (through due care)�. I would like to expand a little more on that subject. If you have a vehicle that is abandoned or left unattended for a long period time and it gets vandalized. Your must report this within 30 days of the loss, but you do not find out until four months later. Your insurance can point out at Duty to Report Losses clause.

It is true that you did not learn about damages until six months form the time of the loss, but you are required to use due care (take care and inspect your property every so often). In this case, the insurance company could deny coverage.

Too late to report this claim!

For this reason is very important to report losses and accidents even if no damage or injuries occur.

Some insurance agents will tell you that some minor accidents are better to not report because it could increase your premiums. This is a controversial advised, and I believe is wrong. Not reporting a claim is potentially leaving you without insurance (something you had and paid for).

Passengers, other parties, passerby, or even people that have nothing to do with the accident could make ludicrous claims against you. If you report the accident, then you will be protected even against ludicrous claims. The insurance company will hire an attorney to protect you! If you do not report the claim, then you will have to pay for your own legal defense, and if you lose, then you will have to pay the judgment. A penny wise is a pound-foolish.

Also, be wary of your agent (or look at the situation objectively). They have their own reasons to report or NOT report claims. They have loss ratios and if they report certain amount of claims (per year, month, or whatever period), then their commissions, or payouts from the policies that they sell could be decreased. (Read more on the role of the agent).

Be sure that if you want to report a claim, it is actually reported. Telling your agent about a claim is not reporting a claim. If your agent decides not to tell the carrier (trust me, this happens a lot), your insurance company will have to do a long investigation to determine whether or not you attempted to actually report a claim, and if there is no evidence of that (other that your word), the could deny the claim. The Duty to Report Losses makes you do it! Do not risk it!

To report a claim you need to call the 800 number and talk to the CLAIMS department.

Complaying with the Duty to Report Losses on time is critical. After that you must provide Proof of Loss. Meaning you must prove your damages. Read more!

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