Unfortunately making an insurance claim isn’t an easy process. The reality is that dealing with insurance policies and companies can be a difficult and painful process. The claims process can be confusing, detailed, and hard to understand. What’s My Claim Worth aims to bridge the gap between insurance firms and our readers, so we want to try and provide some clarity and understanding around why this process can be complicated. 

Understanding insurance companies

In order to understand why claims are so hard to process, you need to understand that an insurance company is a huge business. Your claim is not being handled necessarily by a lawyer with all the training and legal knowledge, but instead by an employee claims officer, so will take longer to process. The claims officer will simply follow the company process when it comes to handling and processing a claim. This means that the result compensation may be less than you deserve. It is in the insurance company’s best interest to pay out as little as possible. This is why they often attempt to offer their customers making a claim muss less money than they are owed, particularly if they feel like you do not understand the process or the severity of your claim. 

Your claim’s value may be unclear to you  

Often when making a claim, the claimant doesn’t have a full, accurate understanding of how much their compensation claim will entitle them to. Companies under WorkCover have a reputation for placing conservative values on their claims. This can lead to the claimant getting less than what they feel they deserved. In order to have the best chance of success as having a successful claim with a higher payout, any claimant should seek good legal advice for both the process and sorting out the value of the claim. You can use the WMCW online claim calculator to help begin this process. 

What do you do if you feel like your claim has been undervalued?  

As part of the insurance process, you can dispute the outcome of your claim through the Australian court system. However, this is a risky process that can take up to 18 months to settle. This obviously isn’t a guaranteed positive outcome either, so the individual disputing the claim can end up in a worse position than they were in originally.