ConsumerWatchdog.org

Unlike most things you buy for your home, you hope you'll never have to use your insurance, even though you're required to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars every year for it. But when you need it, you expect that the company will be there for you, especially after all those years of paying premiums without ever making a claim. Consumer Watchdog keeps an eye on the practice of homeowners insurance companies to make sure they don't overcharge customers and that they pay claims properly and quickly.

Unfortunately, for many people, the first time they think about their home insurance is when disaster strikes. In addition to doing your best to protect against a disaster, some simple steps can help ensure that, if you have to file an insurance claim you won't find yourself having to fight your insurer , while picking up the pieces.

• Review our disaster insurance checklist.

Consumer Watchdog has worked in California and across the country to fight for homeowners and renters who have to buy insurance and, because of wide-scale disaster or a burst pipe, have to file an insurance claim.

We have:

• lowered homeowners insurance rates in California by hundreds of millions of dollars;
• fought insurance companies practice of basing premiums on customers' credit history;
• gone to regulators to stop "Use It and Lose It" abuses in which insurers charge homeowners more just because they filed a legitimate claim;
• we've exposed the smoking guns that show insurers trying to jack up prices when a big storm hits; and
• we've sued insurers for low-balling and defrauding customers in the wake of an earthquake.