Tips for making an insurance claim

Making an insurance claim can often be confusing. Your car insurance company may have a certain time period they turn around a claim and require you to follow specific steps to have your claim processed. Regardless of this, here we've listed the main things you need to take into consideration when making a claim:

• As soon as you are able, phone the insurance company soon after the incident occurs. This is important to get things moving and speak to them about what happened while everything is still very fresh in your mind. You will most likely be asked to fill in a claims form after this, including as much detail as possible about what happened.

• Be open and honest about the exact circumstances of the incident. Sometimes we can change things which may be a bit embarrassing or omit information we don't want to talk about. Being open and honest means that the claim should go through promptly and without any issues. If it is found out that some of the information is wrong or missing, this can lead to an investigation by the insurance company, your claim may be delayed or worse, you may be denied and not able to claim at all.

• Give the insurance company copies of all documentation that will help them to process the claim. It is a good idea to keep all of your insurance related documents in an easily accessible folder in the case of needing to make a claim or if you are running into any issues making a claim in the future. The more documentation you have to support your claim, generally the faster your claim could be processed.

• Cooperate completely with the insurance company and the people affiliated with them including any medical practitioners and investigators. These people will help you with your claim, so being irritable or uncooperative with them will only work against you. Making a claim doesn't have to be a hassle, but it can often feel like it is. Keep calm and go through the process to make it as easy for you and the insurer.

If you feel you have been dealt with unfairly, there are a number of actions you can take, but hopefully and in most cases, this won't happen if you follow the insurance companies claims procedure and provide them with all of the documentation and information they require to process your claim.

If you are just gathering a number of car insurance quotes to organise insurance for your first vehicle, or if you have been driving for many years, the above tips are good to keep in mind should you ever have to make a claim. It is stressful enough having an accident, the last thing you want is for the claims process to cause even more stress. We hope you find the above tips useful in making your claim process as hassle free and as easy as possible should you ever have to lodge a claim with your car insurance company.