Declaring a home insurance claim
After a home claim, three reflexes govern the compensation: take the measures that stop the damage worsening, document the scene with photographs and an inventory, then declare to the insurer without delay. Throw nothing away and commit to no repairs before the position is clear.
Steps
Stop the cause and make safe
Close the stopcock, cut the power, cover the roof. You are required to limit the damage, and the cost of those emergency measures is generally covered.
Photograph before clearing up
Photograph the scene, the damaged items and the source of the damage, before touching anything. Once cleared, the evidence cannot be reconstructed.
Draw up a costed inventory
List the damaged items with their age and their value, and attach any invoices or photographs you already had. An inventory written from memory a month later is worth far less.
Declare in writing without waiting
Contracts set a declaration deadline. Declare in writing, keep the reference, and state the facts plainly rather than interpreting them.
Keep the damaged goods until the assessment
Do not throw anything away before the expert has seen it. Discarded items are items the insurer cannot value, and the benefit of the doubt goes the other way.
Natural disasters sit inside fire insurance
In Belgium, cover for natural disasters — flooding in particular — is integrated into simple-risks fire insurance rather than sold as a separate product.
So a flooded house is a matter for your ordinary home policy. There is nothing extra to have bought and nothing extra to buy after the event.
What varies between contracts is the franchise and the ceilings, not the existence of the cover. Those are the lines to check before a bad winter, not after.
The proportional rule, the under-insurance trap
If the declared capital is below the real value, the insurer reduces every payment in proportion to the shortfall — small claims included, not only total losses.
Under-insure by a third and a €6,000 water damage claim pays €4,000. That is the mechanism, and it operates without anyone having acted in bad faith.
The defence is the insurer's own evaluation grid, completed honestly. Where it is properly filled in, most Belgian insurers waive the proportional rule entirely.
When the compensation does not suit you
You may appoint your own expert. The cost is often covered, at least in part, by the legal protection guarantee if you hold one — check before engaging anyone.
Where the two experts disagree, contracts generally provide for a third, appointed jointly, whose assessment settles the matter.
If the dispute persists, the Ombudsman for insurance examines it free of charge, after you have raised it with the company itself.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly must a claim be declared?
Within the deadline set by your contract, which is generally short. Declare in writing as soon as the situation is safe, keep the reference, and state the facts plainly rather than interpreting them.
Can I start repairs before the assessment?
Only the emergency measures that stop the damage worsening, whose cost is generally covered. Beyond those, wait: repairs carried out before the expert has seen the damage are repairs the insurer cannot value.
Is flooding covered by my policy?
Yes. In Belgium, cover for natural disasters including flooding is integrated into simple-risks fire insurance rather than sold separately. What varies between contracts is the franchise and the ceilings, not the existence of the cover.
What if the expert undervalues my damage?
You may appoint your own expert, often with the cost covered in part by legal protection if you hold it. Where the two disagree, contracts generally provide for a jointly appointed third expert whose assessment settles it.