Does a rejected claim count as a claim?

Your insurer rejected the claim, paid nothing, and the incident still follows you around for six years. That is the part of a rejected claim nobody explains: the record lives on the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE), renewal questions usually ask about incidents rather than payouts, and answering carelessly can void the next claim entirely. Until now the only place this was answered properly was insurance-forum threads. Here is how it actually works.

What CUE is and what gets recorded

The Claims and Underwriting Exchange is the insurance industry's shared incident database, managed by the Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB). It covers home, motor and travel insurance and holds around 34 million records (Compare the Market). When you report anything to a home insurer, they will usually log it, and the entry is created whether or not any money changes hands:

• a claim that was rejected,
• a claim you withdrew once you saw the excess or the premium impact,
• an incident you reported but never turned into a claim ("just letting you know a pipe leaked"),
• and, of course, paid claims.

Insurers check CUE when you apply for cover and at claim time. It exists to catch fraud and mispricing, but its practical effect on you is simpler: your version of your claims history must match the database's.

Rejected claim versus renewal questions

"Does a rejected claim count?" has a precise answer: read the question you are asked. Renewal and application questions come in three widths:

Under the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012 you must take reasonable care to answer accurately. Get it wrong carelessly and a future insurer can scale down a payout; get it wrong deliberately and they can void the policy and keep the premium; the mechanics are covered in our guide to rejected claims. The trap is answering the narrow question in your head ("they never paid me, so no claims") when the form asked the wide one.

How long it follows you

CUE entries are held for six years from the date the claim or notification is closed, then drop off automatically (Aviva). Two consequences:

• Most insurers ask about the last five years, but can see six, so an incident you are no longer asked to declare may still be visible. That is fine: you are only obliged to answer what is asked.
• The six years run from closure, not the incident date. A claim disputed for a year stays visible a year longer.

Will it raise your premium?

It can, even with no payout. Insurers treat incident history as a risk signal: an escape-of-water notification suggests ageing plumbing regardless of whether they paid. The loading varies significantly between insurers; some weight incident-only records lightly or not at all. The practical response is to shop the whole market at the first renewal after any recorded incident rather than accepting the incumbent's quote.

Check your record: the MIB Subject Access Request

You have a legal right to see your CUE data, free:

1. Submit a Subject Access Request on the MIB website (or by post), with identity documents: one proving name and date of birth, one proving address (MoneySuperMarket).
2. The MIB must respond within one month of receiving the request and documents.
3. Queries: 0345 165 2803 or dataprotection@mib.org.uk (GoCompare).

Worth doing before any renewal where you are unsure what an old insurer logged, and always worth doing after a disputed claim, since rejections are precisely the entries most likely to be recorded in terms you would not choose.

Correcting a wrong entry

CUE data is written by insurers, so corrections go through the insurer that created the entry, not the MIB:

1. Write to that insurer setting out what the entry says, what is wrong, and the evidence.
2. Ask for the correction and written confirmation it has been made.
3. Re-run a Subject Access Request to verify.
4. If they refuse to correct something genuinely wrong, raise a formal complaint; data accuracy complaints follow the same eight-week, final-response route as any other, and can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service after that. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office about inaccurate personal data.

The entries worth fighting: a withdrawn claim recorded as rejected, an incident notification recorded as a claim, wrong dates that extend the six-year window, and any entry hinting at fraud concerns you were never told about.

Deciding whether to claim at all, next time

The CUE effect changes the maths on small claims: a £600 payout against a £400 excess and six years of recorded history is often a bad trade. What it should never change is understanding your position before you decide: what your policy would cover, what the excess really is, what the claim is plausibly worth. That is exactly the analysis Roci runs on your policy and your situation before you commit to anything.

If the claim you already made was rejected and you think wrongly, do not just absorb the CUE record: the rejection itself may be worth fighting, and rejections built on "wear and tear" have a well-mapped route to being overturned.