Insurance carriers today have access to a central database of claims, so they can see the past history of claims for a house or a car. One cannot just switch insurance companies after making a claim and expect that claim not to be factored in to their insurance rate.
When makes a claim on insurance, their premiums are likely to rise. This is especially true if there are a number of claims. Many people think they can do this and then just switch insurance companies and the new company would have no idea about the prior claims and therefore offer a lower rate. This is not the case, however. All insurance companies share a centralized database of past claims.
This does not mean, however, that one should not shop around. Oftentimes, insurers do not put equal weight on prior claims or have different risk parameters and a competing insurance company may offer a lower rate. All this means is that they all will have access to your prior claims.
To save money, think before making a claim, especially for small, incidental damage as the added cost in insurance may be more than the claim is for.