The Reasons Why Insurance May Not Cover the Windshield

Most of us are used to insurance throwing us for a loop when it comes to what’s covered and what isn’t covered. Of course, even if a lot of questions are asked, there can still be something that’s missed. One of the important coverages that you might want to check on for your insurance is windshield coverage. In some cases, damage to a windshield is covered and in other cases, it isn’t. If you’re curious whether you’re covered or not, here are a few examples to help answer your questions.

Types of Coverage

It’s important to note what type of insurance coverage you have. Do you have liability, comprehensive, or full coverage? Of course, there may be other options depending on your insurance company, but these are the common types of car insurance. All of these types of coverages have limitations when it comes to windshield damage. Some of these limitations are the same across the board no matter what your coverage is.

Limitations on Coverage

Liability – With liability insurance, there are specific instances where you can make a claim and have it covered. However, these specific instances are very limited and, in general, liability insurance doesn’t cover your windshield. The only way liability insurance will cover your windshield is if it’s another person’s fault and you can claim it against their car or home insurance.

Comprehensive – Usually comprehensive coverage will cover your windshield if the damage is done by an act of God. This means it’s not covered if the damage is done by another person say, in a car crash. However, it will cover an incident such as a branch falling on your windshield.

Full Coverage – This is usually the best option when it comes to car insurance. Full coverage usually covers everything, with few limitations.

Other Reasons

The biggest case in which your windshield won’t be covered by your insurance is if you don’t have the right type of coverage for the incident. For example, say you have comprehensive coverage (which is usually a type of add on to your insurance policy) and a basic liability policy on your car other than that. Say you accidentally hit a pole, this won’t be covered by either policy because liability only covers the incident if another person does the damage and comprehensive only covers acts of God.

Other reasons will be specific to the finer details of your coverage with your specific insurance company. For example, some insurance companies won’t cover an entire windshield replacement if the damage is smaller than a dollar bill, they will only cover a repair of the damage. If the damage was done by a fault of your own, some insurance are very picky about covering these types of incidents and will have stipulations in place. Further, insurance may not cover the cost of the repair or replacement of your windshield due to the deductible you have in place. Say you have a $500 deductible and the damage is $450. You will end up paying entirely out of pocket and there will still be $50 left on your deductible. This means that if you put in another claim, you will still have $50 to pay out of pocket before the insurance company’s part will kick in.