How Do I Check My Home Insurance Claims History Online?
Order a LexisNexis C.L.U.E. report online, the database insurers pull your claims history from, free once a year.
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A higher renewal with no claim and nothing changed on the house usually comes from something other than your own claims record. Insurers reprice based on rebuilding costs in your area, claims other policyholders filed nearby, and changes to their own reinsurance costs. Your C.L.U.E. report will likely come back clean, which tells you the increase isn't about you personally. Worth checking anyway, since a claim filed by a previous owner can sometimes attach to the address. Either way, a clean report is your evidence when you compare other insurers.
A clean C.L.U.E. report tells other insurers you're a low-risk policyholder. That means the higher renewal is about your current insurer's pricing, not about you. If a rebuilding-cost adjustment or nearby claims pushed your price up, a different insurer pricing that same risk may land lower. Worth finding out before you pay the new amount, since a clean record carries weight when you ask for quotes elsewhere.
What's actually on a C.L.U.E. report
A C.L.U.E. report covers the past seven years and lists any claims filed on the property or under your name, including the date, the type of claim, and the amount paid out. It also lists claims that were filed but closed without a payout, which still show up even though they cost the insurer nothing. If you called your insurer to ask a coverage question but never filed a claim, that generally doesn't appear. Only actual filed claims make the report.
It pulls from two sources. One is your own insurance history at any address you've owned. The other is the property's history under previous owners. That second part matters if you bought the house recently. A pipe burst three years before you moved in can still show up when an insurer looks up the address, even though you had nothing to do with it. Some insurers weigh property history less heavily than personal history, but it's worth knowing it's there so a surprise entry doesn't throw you.
The report also has a score, sometimes called a risk score, built from the claims listed. This is not a credit score and has no connection to one. It is a separate number insurers may use to decide what to charge, and different insurers weigh it differently. A low number of claims, or none, usually means a lower score, but a single large payout can affect it more than two small ones. Checking the report lets you see the score and the entries behind it, rather than guessing at why a renewal moved.
If something on the report looks wrong, a claim you never filed, an amount that doesn't match what you remember, or an entry for a date you didn't own the house, you can dispute it directly with LexisNexis. They're required to investigate and correct confirmed errors, typically within 30 days. This is worth doing before you shop for quotes, since an inaccurate report follows you to every insurer that pulls it. A corrected one strengthens your position when you compare prices elsewhere.
How far back does the report go, and who else can see it
The seven-year window moves forward. A claim from year eight is gone, which means an older incident that may have cost you a renewal increase in the past can eventually fall off and stop affecting new quotes. Worth keeping in mind if you've been with your current insurer long enough to have forgotten about something that happened early on. It's possible it's no longer part of what any insurer sees.
Any insurer you ask for a quote can pull a C.L.U.E. report on you, the same way your current insurer does. That's how they price your risk before they've ever written you a policy. This is part of why having a clean report ready, or a corrected one if you've disputed an error, works in your favor. You're not asking an insurer to take your word for your claims history. They're going to look it up regardless, so there is no advantage to skipping the step yourself.
Lenders and some other parties cannot pull your C.L.U.E. report themselves. Access is limited to insurers underwriting a policy on the property, and to the homeowner requesting their own file. If someone else tells you they checked your claims history for an unrelated reason, that is not how the system works. Only you can request your own report, and only insurers can request it in connection with a policy.
One report covers the person named on it, not the house by itself. If you're buying a home, the seller's claims history under their own name won't transfer to you, but any claims tied to the address itself can still appear when an insurer looks up that property. Requesting your own report before you close gives you a sense of your personal history. It won't show you everything an insurer sees once they search the address itself, so a clean personal report and a clean property are two different things worth checking separately.
Before you pay the new price
Pull your C.L.U.E. report, note the score and every entry, and have it ready when you request quotes elsewhere. A clean record is worth more once another insurer can see it too.
