How to Check Your CLUE Report
Request it free from LexisNexis online or by phone. It lists claims tied to you or the house for seven years.
Free to compare
Why your CLUE report matters when the renewal went up
If your price rose with no claim and nothing changed on the house, your CLUE report is one of the first things worth checking. It shows every claim filed on the property for the past seven years, even by a previous owner, and insurers pull this when pricing your renewal. Sometimes a claim shows up that wasn't yours, like a prior owner's water damage claim, and it's still affecting how insurers see the risk on your house. If the report is clean, the increase is coming from something else, like rebuilding costs rising in your area or the insurer repricing risk across the whole state. Either way, pulling the report tells you whether there's an error to dispute or whether the increase is just the market, which matters when you're deciding whether to compare other insurers.
A clean report still means a higher price
If your CLUE report shows nothing wrong, the increase is coming from somewhere else, like rebuilding costs or how the insurer priced risk this year. Other insurers may price it differently.
What's actually on the report, and how to read it
A CLUE report lists each claim by date, type, and amount paid, going back seven years. You'll see things like the cause, a burst pipe, wind damage, a dog bite liability claim, along with whether the insurer paid out and how much. It doesn't show your premium history or why an insurer priced you a certain way. It's a claims record, not a pricing explanation, so don't expect it to say why your renewal went up. What it can tell you is whether a claim exists that's dragging your price up without your knowledge.
Pay attention to claims that aren't yours. If you bought the house in the last seven years, anything filed by the previous owner still shows up, tied to the address. A roof claim from three owners ago can still be sitting in that report, and some insurers weigh it when pricing your policy even though you had nothing to do with it. If you find one, that's worth raising with your current insurer directly, since it may be treating risk on the house as higher than it should.
Also check for claims that were filed but never paid, sometimes called a CLUE inquiry. Some homeowners call their insurer to ask a question about coverage, decide not to file, and it still gets logged as a claim inquiry. That can show up on the report and get read the same way a paid claim would, even though no money changed hands. If you see one of these, it's worth disputing with LexisNexis directly, since the fix isn't something your insurer can do from their end.
If everything on the report is accurate and belongs to you, there's nothing to dispute, but it still tells you something useful. It confirms the increase is about pricing, not a hidden error, which is exactly when comparing other insurers tends to matter most. Insurers don't all weigh the same claims history the same way. One claim five years ago might barely move the price at one insurer and matter more at another, so a clean dispute process doesn't mean a clean shot at a lower price elsewhere.
What to do if you find a mistake on the report
Finding an error is one thing. Fixing it is another, and the process depends on what kind of error it is. If a claim on the report isn't yours at all, wrong address, wrong name, something that belongs to a different property entirely, that's a dispute you file with LexisNexis, not your insurer. They're the ones who compiled the report, so they're the ones who correct it. You can do this online or by phone, and you'll likely need to show proof of ownership or identity to back up the dispute.
If the claim is real but you think it's being weighed unfairly, like a prior owner's claim still dragging on your price, that's a different conversation. LexisNexis won't remove an accurate record just because it happened before you owned the house. What you can do is bring it to your current insurer directly and ask them to look at the pricing, since some insurers will reconsider how much weight they're giving a claim that predates your ownership. Not all of them will, but it costs nothing to ask.
Disputes with LexisNexis typically take a few weeks to resolve, sometimes longer, so this isn't a same-day fix if your renewal is due soon. If the deadline is close, it can help to start the dispute now and separately start comparing other insurers, since you don't have to wait on one before doing the other. A corrected report helps with any insurer you're pricing with going forward, not just the one you're with now.
Keep in mind the CLUE report refreshes as claims age out, so anything past seven years drops off on its own, no dispute needed. If the error you're chasing is something that's about to fall off the report anyway, it may not be worth the time it takes to fix it before your renewal. Worth checking the dates before you start.
Before your renewal date arrives
Pull your CLUE report now and check every claim against your own history. If something's wrong, start the dispute today. If it's clean, that's your answer, and it's worth seeing what other insurers would charge.
