Kanetix
Property Insurance Forum

In a period of 5 years, two claims were made 3 years apart 2007 (roof damage )and in 2010 (damage due to kitchen accident). Can an Insurance Company cancel home insurance due to two claims made in 5 years. Is this legal and fair to a client?

In Canada, property insurance is not regulated in the same way auto insurance is. There are less rules in place to what an insurance company is legally obligated to insure. Basically, an insurer can cancel your home insurance for any number of reasons, claims being one of them. It is common to see home insurance policies cancelled after 2 claims in 5 years but there are usually a number of reasons involved in the risk assessment for this to happen. My advice would be to talk to your insurer, broker, or agent and find out what those reasons are. You can try to reduce or improve the risk in your home and either stay insured where you are or make a good case to your next insurer that you have taken the steps to ensure no further losses, ie. fix your roof, or mitigate the issue which caused the kitchen accident.

Sean Graham, Principal Broker at KTX Insurance Brokers

Thank you Sean for your update. Frankly, the risk component cannot be enhanced more than what is there.
Just to update you: The first claim related to a Snow Tractor skidding/inadvertant error leading to the damage of my garage door. Here a claim was submitted but no claim was made since the Company responsible took charge of it and reimbursed finally.The Insurance Company however, said that a claim was made even though not disbursed still amounts to a documentation on their records.
My Second claim was on account of a major storm in 2008 (if you may recall) which blew of the roof shingles of several houses and subsequently, claimed and reimbursed by the Insurance Company.
My Third claim was on account of a small kitchen accident for which a claim was made and reimbursed. This all was during the first 5 years of Insurance. Please comment.

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Thank you for the additional info. Adding a 3rd claim makes a difference here. Although the 1st 'claim' was never actually put through, you mention that your insurer is still counting it as a claim and holding it against you. This is a rather common practice that I see insurers do. If they open a claim file, assign an adjuster, assess the damage etc. they will incur some costs and so they count it as a claim even if there is no payout to the insured. Since you have 3 completely unrelated claims, or losses rather than claims, I agree with you that there is little you can do to reduce your risk exposure. My advice is this: if you are looking for a new insurer they will see, on paper, that you have 3 claims. You are best to explain that the 1st 'loss' was handled privately and that you were not indemnified (fancy word) by your insurer. Of the other 2 claims, one was a bad storm where many other people had similar claims and this and this was certainly not your fault. (Cont'd)

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The third claim was perhaps the only one where you may or may not have contributed to the risk exposure. If explained to the insurer in the way that you were only, maybe, responsible for one loss, if that. An insurer might look upon it differently if you tell them your story and add context, just as we've done in our conversation here.

Best of luck!

Sean Graham, Principal Broker at KTX Insurance Brokers