Disclose every claim. Every cause, every settlement, every date, on every renewal and every new application. Non-disclosure is the single most common reason an otherwise valid claim is later rejected, and the courts in Ireland enforce the duty of disclosure strictly. Here is what counts as a claim, what you must declare, and what happens when you do not.
What counts as a claim
Any incident where you notified an insurer is a claim, even if it did not settle. That includes:
- Claims that paid out in full
- Claims that paid out in part
- Claims that were declined
- Claims that were withdrawn before assessment
- Notifications where you raised an incident but never followed through
The insurer’s question is usually phrased as “in the last three years” or “in the last five years”; some go back further. Whatever period the application asks about, every event in that window must be disclosed.
What you must declare on each claim
The standard fields:
- Date of loss
- Cause (e.g., escape of water, fire, theft, accidental damage, storm)
- Settlement amount, paid by the insurer
- Whether the claim is closed
- The insurer with whom the claim was made
If the application is unclear on any point, write to the insurer and ask. A documented question and answer protects you if the disclosure later proves inadequate.
What happens when disclosure is wrong
Two scenarios. If the missing information was deliberately withheld, the insurer can void the policy from inception, refund the premiums, and refuse all claims. If the missing information was a genuine mistake, the insurer can still avoid the policy under the Consumer Insurance Contracts Act 2019, but in proportion to the impact the missing information would have had on underwriting.
Either route can wipe out a major claim. We have seen rejected claims where the underlying loss was genuine and the cover was in force, but a single undisclosed prior claim from four years earlier voided the entire policy.
The renewal trap
Renewal applications often default to “no change since last year”. If a claim was made during the year, this default produces a non-disclosure. Read the renewal documents; do not auto-renew if there has been a claim or any other change in the property’s risk profile.
The insurer should write to you about a claim during the policy year, but the obligation to disclose at renewal is still yours.
What about claims on a previous policy or previous owner
If you are buying a property, ask the seller about any insurance claims on the property in the previous five years. Particularly subsidence, fire, flood, and major water damage; these affect the property’s insurability for years afterwards.
When applying for cover on a property you have just bought, prior claims by previous owners are usually not your obligation to declare, but a known prior subsidence claim should be flagged. Insurers ask specifically about subsidence in some applications.
If you genuinely cannot remember
Pull your bank statements for the relevant period and check for refunds or payouts from your insurer. Pull old emails. If you are unsure whether something counted as a claim, write to the insurer and ask for a claims history record on you and the property; they are obliged to provide it.
When to call a loss assessor
If a current claim has been rejected on disclosure grounds, the rejection is sometimes contestable, particularly where the omitted information was minor or genuinely inadvertent. We handle rejected claim disputes regularly and recover meaningful settlements where the rejection was disproportionate to the disclosure failing.
The simple rule
If in doubt, disclose. Insurers very rarely penalise over-disclosure. They routinely penalise omission. The cost of mentioning something the insurer would not have asked about is zero; the cost of forgetting something they would have is sometimes the entire claim.
Written by the team at N.J. Carroll & Associates, insurance loss assessors and quantity surveyors, established 1988.
Related Insights
Guides
How to Document Damage for an Insurance Claim
Photographs, inventory, receipts, conversation log. The four streams of documentation that decide how much an insurance claim actually pays.
Read article
Guides
What to Do After a Burst Pipe: A Step-by-Step Guide
Burst pipe? Stopcock off, drain the system, photograph everything, receipts for everything. The step-by-step that protects the claim.
Read article
Guides
What to Do in the First 24 Hours After a House Fire
The first 24 hours after a house fire shape the next 12 months of the claim. Photograph, secure, document, engage. The order…
Read article