Hey there! Today we’re going to talk about two important terms that you may come across when dealing with insurance policies – claims made policy and occurrence policy.
Imagine you’re driving your car and you get into an accident. If you have an insurance policy that covers accidents, you’ll need to file a claim with your insurance company. This is where the terms “claims made policy” and “occurrence policy” come into play. A claims-made policy provides coverage only if the claim is made while the policy is in force. This means that if you have an accident today but your claims-made policy expires tomorrow and you don’t renew it, you won’t be covered if you file a claim later on. So, it’s important to keep your claims-made policy current and up to date. On the other hand, an occurrence policy provides coverage for any incident that occurs during the policy period, regardless of when the claim is filed. This means that if you have an accident today and your occurrence policy expires tomorrow, you’ll still be covered if you file a claim later on. Now, let’s talk about the retro date on your policy. The retro date is the date from which your claims-made policy starts covering you. It’s important to preserve this retro date because it determines when your coverage begins. If you let your policy lapse and then buy a new policy later, the retro date on the new policy will be the date you bought the new policy, not the date of the original policy. This means that any incidents that occurred before you bought the new policy won’t be covered.
To make this a little clearer, let’s say you have a claims-made policy with McCorkle Insurance in Webster, with a retro date of January 1st, 2020. If you let your policy lapse and then buy a new policy with Jason McCorkle later on, the retro date on the new policy will be the date you bought the new policy, say January 1st, 2023. This means that any incidents that occurred between January 1st, 2020, and January 1st, 2023 won’t be covered by the new policy.
So, to sum it up, it’s important to keep your claims-made policy current and up to date and to preserve the retro date on your policy by not letting it lapse. This will ensure that you’re covered for any incidents that may occur in the future.
