At the Kansas Insurance Department (KID), more than 50 percent of the consumer complaints received about insurance relate to claims handling.

To help eliminate those complaints, preparing and tracking the information the insurance company needs to process the claim is critical in reducing the time between the insurance incident and the resolution of your problem.

Filing and getting a claim resolved with your insurance company can be a frustrating process for you, especially when you are troubled with the incident that caused the claim or you are faced with a weather disaster.

To help get claims paid promptly, KID staff members offer the following ideas:

• Know your policy. Understand what your policy says. Because it is a contract between you and your insurance company, you need to know what’s covered, what’s not and what your deductibles are.
• File claims as soon as possible. Don’t let the bills or receipts pile up. Call your agent or your company’s claims hotline as soon as possible. Your policy might require that you make the notification within a certain time frame.
• Provide complete, correct information. Be certain to give your insurance company all the necessary information. If your information is incorrect or incomplete, your claim could be delayed.
• Keep copies of all correspondence. Whenever you communicate with your insurance company, be sure to keep copies of all correspondence. With phone calls, include the date, name and title of the person you spoke with and what was said. Also, keep a record of your time and expenses.
• Ask questions. If there is a disagreement about the claim settlement, ask the company for the specific language in your policy that is in question. Find out if the disagreement is because you interpret the policy differently. If your claim is denied, make sure you have a letter from the company explaining the reason for the denial — including the specific policy language which caused the denial.
• Don’t rush into a settlement. If the first offer your insurance company makes does not meet your expectations, be prepared to negotiate to get a fair settlement. If you have any questions regarding the fairness of the offer, talk with your local insurance agent, seek other professional advice or call the KID Consumer Assistance Hotline, (in Kansas) 800-432-2484.
• Document temporary auto and homeowners repairs. Auto and homeowners policies might require you to make temporary repairs to protect your property from further damage. Your policy should cover the cost of these temporary repairs, so keep all receipts. Also, document any damaged personal property for an adjuster to inspect. If possible, take photographs or videotape the damage before making the repairs.
• Don’t make permanent repairs. A company might deny a claim if you make permanent repairs before the damage is inspected. If possible, determine what it will cost to repair your property before you meet with an adjuster. Provide the adjuster any records of improvements you made to the property, and ask him/her for an itemized explanation of the claim settlement offer.
• Seek accident and health claims details. Ask your medical provider to give your insurance company details about your treatment, condition and prognosis. If you suspect your provider is overcharging, ask the insurance company to audit the bill, and verify whether the provider used the proper billing procedure.
• Contact us. If you continue to have a dispute with your insurance company about the amount or terms of the claims settlement, contact our Consumer Assistance Hotline or go to our website, www.ksinsurance.org, to file an online complaint, or to discuss the situation by using our online chat feature on the home page.

You can get a claim resolved more quickly and accurately if you have the consumer know-how to move it along.

Veteran CBS News journalist Bob Schieffer closed out an extraordinary round of discussions Wednesday morning at the Newseum with a call for even better journalism — and a reminder of its place and importance to our democracy.

The morning program, “The President and the Press: The First Amendment in the First 100 Days,” included White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, and journalists from news outlets such as Breitbart News, CNN, Fox News, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

The goal of the symposium, Newseum CEO Jeff Herbst said in his opening remarks, was to look for areas of common agreement on how best to report on the Trump presidency. Schieffer took up that challenge as he ended the program.

Noting that the 2016 presidential campaign was the 14th that he covered as a journalist, Schieffer observed that — unlike other campaigns where the candidates’ slogans were memorable catchphrases — this campaign’s hallmark slogan will be “Have you ever…?”

Schieffer wryly commented that every campaign he has seen has an “all the fault of the media” phase. He recommended not overreacting to even this year’s “really nasty” attacks on the press, saying “This is all part of the job. It is something we all know about and expect…that part is not to be taken seriously.”

Schieffer said much of the criticism leveled at journalists during the campaign was contradictory. Some accused the press of “electing Trump because we gave him too much exposure.” Other critics said the press “missed the story because we did not take him seriously.” And yet others said the news media “did not really make much difference because Trump used social media to go around us.” Not all of those could be true, he said.

Serious lessons that can be taken from the election: “Too much information” opened the door for a flood of fake news. New media outlets and social media need to “take some responsibility for what the information is they are distributing.”

“Too many so-called surrogates and strategists made their way onto television and were given far more credibility than they deserved” in a misguided effort to show balance, Schieffer said. “It didn’t take long to listen to them to understand they had no understanding, and really no contact with either campaign.”

Schieffer also said the press paid too much attention to polling and the drama around what he called meaningless one-point leads by candidates. Journalists should “get back to knocking on doors and asking people how they feel,” he said.

In his eloquent defense of a free press, Schieffer said “politicians are there to run the campaigns. Government officials are there to run the government. They are there to deliver a message. Our job is simply to check out the message, determine if it’s true, and if so, what will be its impact on the governed.”

Those who would undermine the function of a free press undermine the foundations of this country, Schieffer said. “We are not the opposition party, as some would have you believe…nor is it our place to sit down and shut up and let the world pass by, as some would have us do.”

Inevitably, Schieffer’s even-handed call on Wednesday for better reporting roused spiteful comments from some of those tuning into the event through social media. One Twitter user wrote that “TRUTH is the enemy of…hacks like Bob Schieffer. We are making corporate propagandists like him extinct. He is bitter and fearful.”

Far from going extinct, Schieffer’s defense of good journalism rings true — now and for future generations of journalists. It’s more likely that such critics — “bitter and fearful” by their very verbal venom — are the ones who will eventually fade from sight.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute. [email protected]