August 23, 2017 | less than a minute read

Report material changes to your insurer

Brownlee Law

It is important to report material changes to your insurer. This is true for all of your insurers, residential and commercial, not just the insurer protecting your home.

Whether a change is material enough to require reporting is tough to comment upon in general terms. That being said, I would say that installing a new wood burning stove in a home that did not have a wood burning stove before is a material change in risk. Replacing an old electric cooking stove with a new electric stove is probably not a material change in risk, in most cases.

Underwriters provide insurance on the basis of the risk presented to them at the time. If something changes the nature of the risk, it is better to over-report than not tell them at all.

This is a good reminder - keep your insurer in the loop.

These words may sound innocuous, but their effect can be draconian. That’s because this provision imposes a continuing obligation on homeowners to notify the insurer of any change to their property that is “material to the risk” – basically, any changes that might have caused the insurer to increase the premiums or decide not to insure the property had the insurer known about it. If the insured fails to make this disclosure, and his or her house is damaged or destroyed by fire or other peril, such as water damage, vandalism, lightning, explosion or hail, among others, that failure “avoids the contract” – meaning the insurer can treat the contract as retroactively void and not cover the loss.