A vase gets knocked over, a floor gets scratched, a client says a screen cracked mid-clean — how you handle the first hour after a damage claim matters more than almost anything else you do that week.
Before any conversation about fault or payment, get the facts down — photos of the damage, which cleaner was on the job, what was being done at the time, and a short written account from the cleaner while it's fresh. This protects you either way: if it's a legitimate claim, you have what your insurer needs; if it's disputed or exaggerated, you have your own record too.
Vague reassurance ("we'll take care of it") without a concrete next step reads as stalling, even when it isn't. Give the client an actual timeline — when you'll have an answer on repair/replacement, and what that process looks like — within the same day if at all possible.
For anything beyond a minor, cheap-to-replace item, contact your general liability insurer before promising a specific resolution to the client. Promising a number out of pocket, then discovering your policy would have covered it (or wouldn't), puts you in a worse position than looping insurance in from the start.
Most damage claims are exactly what they look like — a real accident during real work. Occasionally a claim is inflated or the item wasn't actually damaged by your crew. Treating every claim as automatically legitimate without any verification isn't required, but neither is treating every claim with suspicion; the documentation from Step 1 is what lets you handle both cases fairly without guessing.
For low-cost items, it's often faster and better for the relationship to simply replace or pay for it directly rather than filing an insurance claim, which can affect future premiums for a cost that's smaller than the deductible anyway. Set your own internal threshold (many owners land somewhere under $200–300) below which you just handle it directly.
Recurring damage claims usually point to a training gap, not bad luck — reinforce specific handling procedures for fragile or valuable items as part of onboarding and training, and treat each claim as a data point on where that training needs to improve.
Fast documentation, a specific (not vague) next step for the client, and knowing your own threshold for handling it directly versus looping in insurance will get you through almost any damage claim without it turning into a bigger problem than the item itself.
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