Does Your Car Insurance Cover Natural Calamities?

Natural calamities are disastrous and they cause unimaginable damage each and every time they occur. Some people lose their families, some people lose their assets. It is a catastrophe that can do damage to secure households and well protected families. We all secure our lives with life insurance, then why don’t we do the same for our vehicles as well, a car insurance cover?

While we cannot change what Mother Nature has in store for us, the least we can do is plan beforehand and prepare of such eventuality on time, by taking car insurance online. This way when a natural disaster strikes, lack of funds need not be a barrier to get your car fixed again.

Car Insurance Cover in a Natural Disaster

Imagine you driving your car, one fine day, and suddenly a tree or a heavy obstacle falls on your car’s bonnet, destroying it completely. You will need valid car insurance in such unfortunate conditions to bail you out financially.

Most of the car insurance cover theft or collision cases but do not cover natural disasters. So you need to check for the right coverage. Comprehensive coverage can help you in natural calamities.

What is Comprehensive Coverage?

In addition to the basic coverage of damage compensation to third party involved in an accident, a comprehensive coverage also covers your own car damage or injury to self.

Comprehensive insurance policies cover the basic conditions like – theft, collision, glass damage, or vandalism. It also covers some other not so routine conditions like fire or natural calamities like storm, hail, flood, or hurricane.

What to check when you buy car insurance?

You need to be sure that the policy you are opting for has sufficient coverage for damages arising out of natural calamities. Such coverage is added in ‘other -than -collision’ clauses. If you are living in a hilly or flood-prone locality, then this point becomes absolutely essential when you buy a car insurance cover.

What to do in case of damage from natural calamity?

One of the most vital things of claiming for car insurance is timing. You need to move quickly in case of collecting evidence and documentation for making acclaim for damage to car due to natural disaster.

Let’s take the case of Mr. Pereira here. This Mumbai resident had parked his car inside the compound. With the October 2017 flooding, the wall adjacent to the car collapsed and the bricks fell on the car, damaging its roof, hood, and engine. The first thing to note here is that Mr. Pereira should not try to remove the bricks, stones, and debris. He needs to take a video with a 360ᵒ view and take photos from different angles.

While he will be tempted to clean the car after the flood has receded, it is not advisable. It is important that an insurance company representative gets a first-hand look of the damage caused by the natural calamity. It can substantially strengthen Mr. Pereira’s case when he files for a comperhensive coverage claim.

Act in quick time

It is crucial that you start the claim filing process as soon as possible. In case of natural calamities, the number of damaged cars in an area or region tends to go up substantially. Hence, the service stations accept cars on first- come- first- serve basis. So you need to submit the car at your immediate convenience and file for claim at the same time.

Keeping these points in mind will lead to quicker claim settlement. With this knowledge, you can buy a suitablecar insurance online and continue availing protection against natural disasters.

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