Homeowners insurance covers a wide array of risks and is there if you need financial compensation for a covered loss, but it doesn't cover everything that might happen to your home. If you have homeowners insurance, here's when you would want to file a homeowners insurance claim and when you wouldn't want to file a claim.
Your Home is Destroyed
If your home is destroyed by an incident other than an earthquake or flood (see below), file a homeowners insurance claim against your policy. Insurance is meant to help people financially cover from devastating incidents, and this is about as devastating an incident as your home can sustain. Since you have nothing to lose, you might as well file a claim.
Assuming the incident is covered by your homeowners insurance, your policy will help pay to replace your home up to the policy's limit.
Your Home is Damaged by an Earthquake or Flood
If your home is damaged or destroyed by an earthquake or flood, your homeowners insurance policy isn't the policy that you want to file a claim against. Standard homeowners policies exclude these two risks from their list of covered protections.
Instead, you'll need to file a claim against either an earthquake insurance policy or flood insurance policy in this situation. Importantly, you'll need to carry each of these policies if you want coverage for the respective risks.
Your Home's Window is Broken by a Ball
If a neighborhood kid hits a baseball or shoots a lacrosse ball through your home's window, don't bother calling your insurance company.
Regardless of whether this exact type of incident is covered by your policy, the cost of replacing a window is almost certainly less than what your homeowners insurance deductible is. Since you must pay your deductible out-of-pocket before the policy will pay on a claim, you're unlikely to get anything for this type of claim. A call to the neighbor is your best course of action.
Your Home is Damaged by Fire
If your home is damaged by fire, you'll likely want to file a homeowners insurance claim.
Even a small fire can cause substantial smoke damage, and a larger fire will likely also cause structural damage. Remedying these costs is frequently expensive, and the claim will likely exceed your policy's deductible. Also, fire is a common risk that most homeowners insurance policies include as one of their standard protections.
