Liability insurance procedure

You have unintentionally caused damage to someone else, what now? Whether it concerns material, physical or mental damage, the procedure for submitting a request for compensation is similar in nature. In this article, we explain step by step what the procedure entails and what you can take into account.

Submitting a request

The moment you have caused damage that has financial consequences for the “victim”, it is important to inform your liability insurer. By initiating this process you request the insurer to reimburse the costs of the damage so that you do not have to bear high costs yourself.

The trajectory that will be covered in most cases will be as follows:

• You must submit a request for payment to the insurer as soon as possible
• The insurer examines whether there is liability
• If there is liability, the insurer pays out

Payment

The amount that the insurer pays depends on the financial damage that has been suffered. If you have taken out insurance with a deductible excess, you will in any case have to pay this amount yourself. Everything that amounts to more damage is reimbursed by the insurance company. If you do not have a deductible, the insurer will pay any amount. The insurance company reimburses up to a maximum of the amount insured by you.

Material and immaterial

If there is material damage and liability has been demonstrated, the payment will be made fairly quickly by the insurance company. In this case, the financial loss is recorded and paid out. For example, the costs of a new laptop, dry cleaning costs or the costs of a new window. If there is immaterial damage, the payment from the insurer can take a longer time. In that case, the amount of the claim still depends on a number of other factors, for example:

• The number of treatments
• The type of treatments
• The treatment period
• And the victim’s recovery period

Important for payments

The insurance company with which your BUTTON liability insurance BUTTON is running will only pay if you can prove that the damage caused has been caused intentionally. It is therefore important that you can prove that this is the case.

There are a number of things you can do to reinforce your request with the insurance:

• Immediately record the damage (together) as soon as it has arisen
• Take photos of the damage
• Ask bystanders for a written explanation of what exactly happened and of the damage that occurred
• Submit the application to the insurance company as soon as possible

Moreover, it is important to always pay the insurance premium on time. An insurer may refuse to pay if the damage was caused during the temporarily uninsured period that then arose.