Special Risks and Their Handling

As a general rule, not every risk that occurs in public road traffic is covered by the corresponding form of insurance under a motor vehicle insurance policy. Some risk factors are handled in a very special way and can only be insured for a surcharge or through an additionally added insurance form, or not at all.

In most cases, these are risks over which the vehicle owner or driver has relatively little personal influence.

For example, forces of nature: there is little you can do to prevent storms, floods, and other forces of nature from affecting your own vehicle. The only option is to heed the warnings, which are often quite short in time and bring your vehicle to safety in good time. But even this is not always possible.

The situation is similar in the case of stone impacts and damage caused by the game. It is not always possible to drive with such consideration on the road that such damage can be ruled out from the outset.

In the case of damage caused by the game, even low speeds are sufficient to cause major damage to the vehicle. For example, a deer with a weight of 70 kg has an impact weight of more than one ton when it hits the road at a speed of only 60 km/h. The corresponding effects in the event of damage occurred in the event of a collision.

The corresponding effects in the event of the damage came under these aspects everyone easily imagines for themselves.

It is therefore important for consumers to know which risks are not automatically included in the usual forms of insurance, and how they can nevertheless insure themselves effectively against these risks.

Based on this reason, we have compiled the most important risk factors for you below, which correspond to these restrictions. In this way, you will have the necessary basic knowledge and can then decide for yourself which risks are important to you and should therefore be insured accordingly.

For example, if you live in an area of the USA where natural disasters in the form of storms, hailstorms, or floods occur frequently, it is definitely advisable to provide your vehicle with increased insurance coverage against such damage.

However, there can be unpleasant surprises: the higher the risk in a particular region for a specific type of damage, the higher the premiums for a correspondingly increased insurance policy. Some insurers even refuse to insure certain risk factors in individual areas of the USA altogether.

Damage due to glass breakage occurs when car windows, headlights, or other parts made of glass are damaged or destroyed.

This can be the case, for example, due to the impact of the stone chipping or also due to wilful destruction. Of course, windows and headlights can also be broken in a normal accident, which then also constitutes damage due to glass breakage.

As should be well known by now, the motor vehicle liability insurance only settles the damage caused to the vehicle of the other party involved in the accident, provided that the insured party is at fault for this accident.

In this case, therefore, no damage caused by glass breakage will be covered by the liability insurance. The situation is different for damage that is settled by comprehensive insurance. For example, almost every partial cover insurance policy for a vehicle in the USA includes corresponding glass breakage protection.

While the partial cover insurance does not usually settle damages to the own vehicle, the partial cover insurance is very much responsible for those that fall under glass breakage.

For example, if you park your vehicle overnight and find it the next morning with a damaged or smashed window, and you have partial cover insurance for this vehicle, the insurance company will pay for the repair or replacement of the window.

But be careful: The insured person should definitely take a look at the exact insurance conditions of his partial cover policy. In some cases, insurance companies exclude certain types of damage or modes of occurrence from the obligation to settle.

For example, while most partial cover policies include glass breakage due to vandalism, the situation is sometimes different for damage caused by natural forces. There are individual insurers who consistently exclude all forces of nature from claims settlement. In this case, there is no protection against glass breakage.

Glass breakage can also occur if, for example, you are involved in a deer accident with your vehicle. If the deer or fox hits the front of the vehicle, the headlights and/or windshield are often affected.

The first step here is to clarify with the insurer how such damage will be handled. If there is a policy against wildlife accidents, it will usually cover all settlement costs, i.e. also those incurred for the replacement of windows or headlights.

Conclusion: Glass is a particularly sensitive material on a vehicle and can accordingly be easily damaged or broken altogether. You will hardly find a motorist who has not suffered damage to a windshield or a broken headlight in his or her time of participating in public road traffic.

For this reason, insurance against glass breakage is very important and advisable for every road user. Only those who only have liability insurance coverage must do without it.

However, everyone else is advised to take a close look at the individual insurance conditions so that you know whether you can really rely one hundred percent on your insurer in the event of an emergency.