Do you know what you’d do if your windshield were to become cracked due to a flying rock or excessive temperature stress? For most car owners, the answer would be to call their insurance company and report the damage so that it can get fixed in a timely manner. Unfortunately, glass damage that occurs outside of a car accident isn’t covered under liability or collision insurance. Instead, you’ll need to make sure you have comprehensive insurance.
Windshield Glass Damage and How to Avoid It
Your car’s windshield is comprised of two layers of tempered glass with a later of polyvinyl butyral stuck between the two layers. This design prevents the glass from shattering when it’s hit with a rock or another piece of road debris, and it’s the reason windshields tend to develop spider cracks and chips from object impacts rather than holes.
- Flying Rocks and Debris – When driving down the road, you may have heard rocks and other debris bounce off the sides of your car, resulting in paint chips. If those rocks are thrown high enough, they can also crack your windshield. For this reason, it’s important to give plenty of space between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you. This way, if their tires do throw rocks from the road, they’ll be less likely to hit your windshield and damage it.
- Falling Objects – when objects, like tree branches and wildlife fall onto your windshield from a storm or high winds, they can crack the glass. In order to reduce the risk of falling and flying objects while your car is parked, our insurance agency in Indianapolis recommends parking your car under a carport or in a garage. If that’s not possible, try to avoid parking under trees.
- Extreme Temperature Changes – While damage to your car’s glass from extreme temperature changes is more likely in places like Florida, it’s still possible to cause thermal damage to your windshield on extremely hot summer days. This type of damage usually occurs when your car has been sitting in direct sunlight and gets hit by cold water, either from your garden hose when you go to wash your car or your yard’s sprinkler system. In order to avoid this type of damage, it’s best to make sure your car’s windshield is not extremely hot by parking your car in the shade and testing the temperature before spraying it with cold water.
Understanding Comprehensive Car Insurance
If you do not have comprehensive car insurance, you may have to pay for your glass repairs or the replacement of your windshield from your personal finances. This is because liability and collision insurance don’t cover damage that was caused outside of a collision.
Comprehensive Car Insurance for Windshield Damage
Comprehensive car insurance covers items like falling objects, flying debris, certain types of weather damage, and vandalism. This means that if someone hits your windshield with a hammer, the damage is covered under the comprehensive portion of your insurance policy.
If you don’t know if you have comprehensive car insurance or you know you need comprehensive car insurance, you can call our insurance agent in Indianapolis to have your current policy examined and to get a quote for comprehensive insurance. Once your comprehensive insurance policy is in place, your car will have the coverage it needs for certain types of non-accident related damage, like flying and falling objects.
Glass Repair and Replacement
Depending on the severity of the glass damage, the glass repair company will either repair it or replace the entire windshield. Typically, when you only have a small chip, it will be filled with a clear resin, which will hide the damage, seal the chip, and prevent cracks from forming. If your windshield is cracked, the glass replacement company will most likely opt to remove your old windshield and replace it with an entirely new windshield. The good news is that in many instances, you won’t have to drive to the repair shop. Instead, they’ll send a mobile unit out to your car, and if you have comprehensive car insurance and filed a claim for the glass damage, you may not have to pay anything for the repair or replacement of your windshield.
