What an EICR can and cannot say in an insurance claim

• The policy

  What is insured, what is excluded, and what the insurer asked for. Ask the insurer. This page cannot read the wording.

• The EICR

  Condition of the fixed installation, within the extent and limitations, on that day.

• Cause of loss

  Why a particular fire, flood or failure happened. A condition report is not that investigation.

• Later work

  Certificates for repairs done after the report. They do not rewrite the earlier inspection.

• Which document

  Ask whether they want the condition report, a repair certificate, or a separate investigation of the cause. Do not guess.

• Which date

  Ask whether a report from before the loss is what they requested. A later inspection is a different day.

• What you send

  Send the report you hold, including the limitations, and any later certificate for work that was done. Do not edit either.

• What you do not add

  Do not write on the report that the installation caused the loss, or that it did not. That conclusion is not an EICR.

An EICR does not guarantee cover. A missing EICR is not described here as an automatic void. A failed EICR is not described here as an automatic refusal of a claim. Those outcomes depend on the policy and on the facts, which this article does not have.

If an insurer asks for the report, send the report you hold, including the limitations. Do not edit it. If they ask whether the installation caused the loss, that question goes back to them or to whoever is appointed to investigate the cause.

A water leak, a later unsatisfactory inspection, or solar equipment are condition topics. They do not become insurance decisions because they share a building.

If you are asked for papers, the useful set is the one you actually hold. That may include the EICR, with its limitations, any later certificate for repairs, and a note of the date the loss happened. Send them as they are. Do not add a sentence that says the installation did or did not cause the loss. You do not have that investigation.

Questions for the insurer are theirs to answer. Ask which document they want, whether they want the condition report or a cause investigation, and whether a report dated before the loss is what they asked for. A fresh EICR describes the installation on the new inspection date. It does not reconstruct the installation on the day of the loss, and it does not decide the claim.

If you need the installation inspected, use EICR testing. If you already have observations to discuss, use remedial work.