How to Find Old Home Insurance Claims
Order a CLUE report, which lists claims tied to you or the home for the past seven years.
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Your CLUE report
A CLUE report pulls claims tied to you personally, from any home you've owned, going back seven years. If this is your first house, your own history may be thin, but insurers still check it when pricing your new policy.
The seller's claim history
Claims tied to the house itself, filed by the seller, won't show up on a report ordered in your name. Ask the seller directly for their claims history or a CLUE report on the property, since past water or roof damage affects what you'll pay.
Why insurers care
A house with several past claims, especially water damage, can be harder to insure or cost more to cover. Some insurers decline homes with certain claim patterns outright. Knowing this before closing avoids a scramble for coverage at the last minute.
Timing against closing
Ordering a CLUE report and reviewing the seller's claims takes time you may not have if closing is close. Start this as soon as the house is under contract, not after your lender asks for proof of insurance.
A clean-looking house with a history of water claims can still cost more to insure, or get turned down by some companies entirely. Since you won't find that out until you ask for the seller's report or get quotes against it, comparing options early shows you where you actually stand before closing day forces a decision.
What to do if the claims history is bad
If the seller's CLUE report shows several claims, or even one large water damage claim, that doesn't mean the house is uninsurable. It means you need to ask more questions before you're locked in. Find out what caused each claim and whether it was fixed. A burst pipe that was repaired and never recurred reads differently to an insurer than a basement that's flooded twice in five years. Ask the seller for repair records or contractor invoices if the claim was serious, since some insurers will want that documentation before they'll write a policy.
Water damage claims carry the most weight because they tend to repeat. A roof claim from a hailstorm three years ago is a one-time event tied to weather, not the house itself. A claim for a slow leak under a sink points to a plumbing issue that might still be there. If you're not sure which kind you're looking at, the CLUE report usually lists a claim type code, and the seller or their agent should be able to explain what happened in plain terms.
Some houses come back with a claims history bad enough that certain insurers won't offer a policy at all. This happens more with older homes, homes near water, or homes with multiple past roof or water claims within a short span. If you hit this wall, you're not out of options, but you likely won't get the cheapest policy on the market. This is exactly the situation where checking several insurers matters most, since one company's decline is another's acceptable risk.
If the house needed repairs after a past claim, ask whether those repairs are documented and whether they addressed the actual cause or just the damage. A new roof after a hail claim is straightforward. A patched foundation after water intrusion is worth asking a home inspector about directly, separate from what the insurance paperwork says. None of this needs to delay your closing if you start early enough to act on what you find, which is the whole reason to pull this history before your lender is waiting on a binder.
What if you can't get the seller to share anything
Not every seller will hand over a CLUE report or answer questions about past claims, and nothing forces them to. If the listing agent goes quiet or the seller says they don't have the report, you still have ways to get a picture of the house's history without their cooperation.
You can order a CLUE report on the property itself, not just one tied to your name. This requires the seller's authorization in most cases, since the report is tied to the address and the people who've insured it, but a buyer's agent can often request this as part of the purchase agreement. Making it a condition of moving forward, the same way you'd ask for a home inspection, puts it in writing rather than leaving it to a verbal request that goes nowhere.
If the seller still won't produce anything, the house's public permit history can fill in some gaps. Most counties keep records of permits pulled for repairs, and a roof replacement, foundation work or plumbing overhaul tied to a date will often line up with a claim even if you never see the claim itself. This won't catch everything, since some repairs happen without permits, but it's a free check that takes an afternoon.
A home inspection matters more in this situation, not less. An inspector won't know what was filed with an insurer, but they will see water stains, patched drywall, or foundation cracks that suggest past damage whether or not it was ever reported. If the seller's history is a dead end, treat the inspection report as the next best source of truth, and bring anything unusual to the insurers you're getting quotes from so they can tell you upfront how it affects what they'll offer.
Before you request a binder
Check your purchase agreement for a seller disclosure or CLUE report clause, and if it's missing, ask your agent to add one now, before your lender sets a closing date around coverage you haven't confirmed yet.
