How to File an Insurance Claim That Gets Paid (with an AI Prompt)

Before anyone at the insurance company looks at your damage, they read your claim report. If it is complete, factual and backed by evidence, the claim is usually settled quickly. Contradictions, gaps or exaggerations lead to queries, loss adjusters and, in the worst case, a rejection. Here you will find what belongs in a good claim report, what the law expects from you and how an AI can help you write it, even if your German is not perfect yet.

What German law expects from you after a loss

The German Insurance Contract Act (Versicherungsvertragsgesetz, VVG) gives you a few duties after a loss, which lawyers call Obliegenheiten. Your policy conditions often spell them out in more detail:

• Report without delay (§ 30 VVG): As soon as you know about the damage, you report it without undue delay. Burglary, theft, robbery and vandalism also have to be reported to the police right away.
• Provide information and evidence (§ 31 VVG): The insurer may ask for all the information and documents it needs to assess the damage and whether it has to pay.
• Prevent and limit the damage (§ 82 VVG): You have to do what is reasonable to stop the damage from getting worse. The insurer reimburses the cost of doing so under § 83 VVG.

If you breach one of these duties intentionally, the insurer can refuse to pay at all under § 28 VVG. In case of gross negligence it may cut the payout in proportion to how serious the fault was. Anyone who deliberately gives false information to get more money usually loses the entire claim and risks a criminal complaint for fraud. Inflating a purchase price or slipping in an old scratch is never a minor detail.

Before you write: secure the evidence

A good report starts before you write the first sentence. Photograph the damage from several angles, first an overview and then the details. For water damage, also capture the cause, such as the burst hose, and how high the water was. Only then start cleaning up.

Do not throw away damaged items until the insurer agrees, even if the broken TV is in the way. Emergency measures, on the other hand, are allowed and even required: turn off the water, temporarily cover a smashed window, call an emergency service. Note what you did and when, and keep the invoices.

Then gather your evidence: purchase receipts, bank statements, warranty cards, manuals or photos that show the items before the damage. Write down the names and contact details of witnesses and the police reference number. After a burglary you also send the police and your insurer a list of stolen items (Stehlgutliste) with the year of purchase and the price of each item. Why the sum insured of your household contents insurance matters here is explained in my guide to the underinsurance trap.

What a good claim report looks like

Many insurers have their own online forms, with others you send an email or use their app. The content is always the same, and if you have it ready in this order, any form is filled in quickly:

1. Policy details: your name, your policy number and the type of insurance.
2. When and where: the date, the time as exactly as possible and the place of the loss.
3. What happened: the sequence of events in chronological order, as you experienced or found it. Write what you know and mark assumptions as assumptions.
4. What was damaged: every item with its year of purchase, price and type of damage.
5. What you have already done: emergency measures, police report with reference number, tradespeople you called in.
6. People involved: injured parties, witnesses and other insurers, if known.
7. Attachments: a list of all photos, invoices and documents you send along.

Keep it factual. Sentences like "I did everything right away" or "This is an obvious case" do not help you, specific times and receipts do.

Liability claims: do not admit fault

If you caused damage to someone else, your personal liability insurance steps in. It checks whether and to what extent you are liable at all and fends off unjustified claims. To do that, it needs a free hand.

Since the reform of the VVG in 2008, admitting fault at the scene no longer costs you your cover (§ 105 VVG). The insurer only pays what you actually owe under the law, though. If you promised your neighbour more, you pay the difference yourself. So help, exchange names and addresses and note the facts, but do not say "It was my fault, I will pay for it". The same applies to your report: describe what happened and leave the legal assessment to the insurer.

Writing the claim report with AI

Right after a loss, hardly anyone feels like writing a clean report, let alone in German. An AI such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini can turn your notes into an orderly text. The prompt below makes the AI ask for missing information first, add nothing on its own and admit no fault. It writes the report in German, which every German insurer understands, and adds an English translation so you can check what you are about to send. Copy it, replace the parts in square brackets with your notes and send it.

You are helping me write a claim report to my German insurance company.

Type of insurance: [e.g. household contents, personal liability, residential building]
My notes: [What happened, when and where? Who was involved? What was damaged? What have I done since? Which photos, receipts and documents do I have?]

Follow these rules:
1. First ask me about anything that is missing and that an insurer typically needs: date, time, place, cause, witnesses, police reference number, amount of damage, year of purchase and price of the damaged items. Only write the text once I have answered.
2. Write a factual report in the first person and in chronological order.
3. Do not invent, exaggerate or leave out anything. Whatever I do not know, state openly as unknown. Mark assumptions as assumptions.
4. Do not admit fault and do not assess who is liable. Only describe what happened.
5. Use placeholders such as [NAME], [ADDRESS] and [POLICY NUMBER] instead of real data.
6. End with a list of attachments.
7. Write plainly and naturally, the way a person writes a factual letter. No set phrases, no filler sentences, no dramatic words and no typical AI wording.
8. Do not use any dashes as punctuation (neither en dash nor em dash). Separate thoughts with a comma, a full stop or a new sentence.
9. Write the report in German. Below it, add an English translation so I can check the content.

For a useful result, keep four things in mind:

• No personal data in the chat: Add your name, address, policy number and bank details to the finished text yourself, outside the AI. For injuries, write only something general like "bruised arm", no diagnoses or medical findings. Most AI services also let you switch off the use of your chats for training in their settings.
• Check every sentence: AI models like to fill gaps with plausible-sounding details. If the text mentions a time you never gave, or makes the damage sound bigger than it is, delete it. Use the English translation to compare the German text with your notes. You sign and send the report, not the AI.
• The insurer's form comes first: If the insurer provides a form, copy the matching sections of the text into its fields.
• No legal advice: The AI writes, it does not check whether your policy covers the loss. For questions about cover, ask me or your insurer.

How I use AI tools in my own work and where their limits are is described in my guide AI advice vs. expert advice.

If your policy is managed by me

Then you do not have to do this alone. Send me your notes or the finished text by WhatsApp, email or through the simplr app before you submit it. I check that everything the insurer needs is there, submit the claim and follow up, in English or German. How this works in detail is described in my guide to claims management.

If the insurer refuses, cuts the payout or keeps you waiting, I can also bring in the claims service of Maxpool. Maxpool is the broker pool I work with, and its claims service reviews disputed cases with its own claims specialists. It costs you nothing. Nobody can promise a particular outcome, but you do not face the insurer on your own. The service only covers policies managed by me, meaning policies you took out through me or transferred into my care. If you would like to transfer your existing policies to me, get in touch. The policies themselves stay exactly as they are. What you can do yourself after a denial is covered in the guide Insurance claim denied: how to appeal.