By VIRA Advisory Team · September 2026 · 6 min read
A fire is already a bad day for a business. What makes it worse is discovering, weeks into the claims process, that a mistake made in the first 48 hours reduced what you're able to recover. Here are the mistakes we see most often — several of them entirely avoidable.
This is the single most common and most costly mistake. In the understandable rush to resume operations, businesses sometimes clear debris, move damaged stock, or start repairs before the insurer's surveyor has inspected the site. This can genuinely complicate — or in some cases jeopardise — the claim, since the surveyor can no longer independently verify the extent of damage. Wait for the survey, or at minimum, photograph everything extensively before touching anything.
Most fire policies expect prompt notification — sometimes with a specific window, sometimes just "as soon as reasonably possible." Waiting days to formally notify the insurer, even while informally dealing with the aftermath, can complicate the claim. Notify the insurer immediately, even before you have full documentation ready — the formal claim form and supporting documents can follow.
For stock claims specifically, insurers will compare your claimed stock value against your declared values, purchase records, and stock registers. If these don't align — because declarations were consistently understated to reduce premium, or because record-keeping was simply inconsistent — the claim gets scrutinised harder and often reduced.
Many fire policies carry conditions — functioning fire extinguishers, electrical safety audits completed within a set period, sprinkler systems maintained. If you're not compliant with a warranty at the time of the fire, the insurer has grounds to reduce or reject the claim, regardless of how unrelated the warranty seems to the actual cause of the fire. Know your policy's specific warranties before you need to rely on the policy, not after.
If your declared sum insured is lower than the actual value at risk, most policies apply a proportionate reduction (the "average clause") to your claim payout — meaning you recover less than your actual loss, even on a partial claim. This isn't something that can be fixed after a fire; it's a mistake made months or years earlier at the last renewal, and it's one of the most common and most preventable issues we find during annual reviews.
What matters at claim time is the actual policy wording, not what a salesperson said when the policy was sold. If there's a discrepancy between what you were told and what the policy document says, the document governs. This is exactly why we recommend reviewing the actual policy schedule and wording, not just relying on a summary, before you need to make a claim.
Not every claim decision is final or correct on first review. If a claim is reduced or rejected for a reason that doesn't seem to match your policy wording, request the specific reason in writing and have it reviewed — ideally by someone who can read the policy on your behalf. We've seen genuine documentation-gap rejections successfully overturned on appeal.
Almost every mistake on this list is preventable with two things: an accurate, up-to-date policy (checked annually, not just at renewal reminder time), and knowing exactly what to do in the first 24-48 hours after a fire, before the situation is stressful and decisions are rushed. Both are worth sorting out before you ever need them.
Dealing with a fire claim right now, or want to review your policy before you ever need to?
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