Having a home insurance policy is no guarantee your spending budget won’t need further stretching. Even as far as your insurance premiums go, filing any type of home insurance claims almost always guarantees a rates increase. Seems unfair, is it? If the damages you were filing a claim for was a burst pipe in the dead of winter or a lightning struck down a part of your house? Wasn’t the policy meant for situations beyond your control?

While it is true that all types of insurance – homeowner’s included – are meant to protect you from unforeseeable risk of loss, home insurance is not your maintenance account. Insurance companies are businesses that exist for profit. That means they have to make more money than they spend. People paying premiums are their sources of revenue. People filing home insurance claims drive their costs up. Although your coverage might include shingles blown off of your roof on a particularly windy afternoon, you might want to be prudent about filing home insurance claims. Why? Read on for reasons or situations when your rates may increase.

1. Total claims filed in your area during a given period may raise your premiums. If in a particular year, the total claims filed by homeowners in a particular area have increased the premium rates for home insurance rises. When natural disasters have caused considerable damage to properties in your area, insurers are legally obliged to pay claims. This increases the insurance company’s cash outlay. To get back on track, you can expect a rates increase. The catch in this situation is this: the increase applies to everyone in the area, even to those who have not suffered damages nor filed home insurance claims.

2. Your claims history bear on new rates you get given. When you’ve lived in California and have made a claim for damaged roof, your California insurer may or may not have raised your premium rates. Sounds good. End of story? Not quite. When you move to New York and take out home insurance for your new home, your New York insurer will take your previous claim in California as one of the determinant factors to assessing how much your rate will be. If you’ve been filing claims back in California regularly, you can expect your New York premiums will be much higher than you expect.

3. Age and condition of your home is a factor to a rates increase. Older homes cost more to maintain and will likely suffer more damages than brand new homes. When parts of your home, for example your roof shingles, have reached the end of the economic lives and you don’t do anything to replace them to restore the value of the property, you can be sure assessors will recommend to increase your premiums when they drop in for a visit.

Despite the above, not every home insurance claim you make results to a rates increase. It does pay, however, to take care of your home and exercise prudence when filing claims. Yours is not the only rate that can potentially increase; you neighbor’s rates may also be at stake.