A lot of insurance companies have a threshold for number of claims that will either cause the insurance company to drop you or raise your rates. A claim gets defined as either something they pay out OR whenever you have an adjuster come out and evaluate a potential claim.

We have a lot of strong thunderstorms with big hail in Missouri. We have a tall two story house with a steep roof that catches a lot of wind. We constantly have shingles blowing off the roof. The first two times it happened, we called the insurance company to find out if we should file a claim or not. They sent an adjustor out who determined that the damage wasn't in excess of our $1000 deductible, so I repaired it myself. We then had a big hailstorm, and my inlaws who live next door, had their entire roof replaced from the hail damage. Considering their insurance company said their roof was a total loss, we figured it would be a good idea to have the adjustor come out and look at our roof as well. They determined that because we had heavier duty shingles, our roof was fine.

The next week, we got a letter from our insurance company telling us that due to the excessive number of claims filed (total of 3 inspections over 5 years), that they were cancelling our homeowners insurance. The insurance company never paid out a dime to us on a claim, yet we got classified as a high risk insured. When we went to shop for replacement insurance, we had a hard time finding an insurance company who would take us. Apparently our high claims rate status got reported somewhere, and all the insurance companies had access to this information. As a result we had to use an ultra-expensive, obscure, company to insure us for the next year. After a year, the first shingle inspection was too old to count, so we qualified for normal rates again.

The moral of the story is that it's often better to have a contractor come look at the problem and give an estimate of the cost to repair before you contact your insurance company. If the repair is less than the cost of your deductible, you don't report it to your insurance.