My Car’s Interior is Damaged: Am I Covered by My Insurance?
Whenever we think about collision damage, we frequently think about bent and dented body panels, cracked lights, as well as front and rear ends that are damaged. What about the inside of your car? Between airbags, dashboards, seat belts, interior panels, glove boxes and seats, there’s a lot that can be damaged within a vehicle’s cab, even if it remains relatively intact right after the accident.
To answer the main question, posed by us at Service King San Pedro in San Antonio, TX the damage that’s caused by an accident is covered by standard auto insurance. In many cases, damage caused by vandalism is only covered strictly by comprehensive vehicle insurance.
Baby seats, kid’s safety accessories and booster seats are usually not covered by standard insurance but are usually covered by full comprehensive insurance, whether the damage was caused by vandalism and/or a crash.
Interior Plastics
While the seat belt prevents you from moving around in the cab and the airbags protect your head and upper body from serious trauma, your arms and legs are always still moving freely during the accident. Most smaller interior parts can snap into place, so that they can break away when struck during any type of collision. This simplifies the replacement process, requiring little or no repair of the inner frame to attach new parts in most cases.
Fabric, Leather and Carpets
In-seat airbags will often tear through the fabric when they are deployed. The majority of the damage that takes place after an airbag deploys is done to the car’s upholstery and carpets that are cut up by bits of glass and other debris. Just like water damage, fabric damage can be difficult to prove, as cuts and abrasions are considered normal wear by most insurers.
Airbags
When it comes to accident repairs, airbags are possibly the most misunderstood parts of any vehicle. The powder released when the bag deploys is not dangerous, as many people will tend to believe. Replacement airbags can be expensive, but that does not mean that they will automatically total out the car. A typical replacement airbag will cost somewhere between $500-$1,200 while totaling a vehicle requires damage that would cost more than 75 percent of the vehicle’s value to repair.
Seat Belts
The seat belt mechanism is designed to let the belt move in and out freely under normal driving conditions, then lock during an accident to keep you in your seat and in the path of the airbag. You may have locked your belt inadvertently before, but most cars have a second pre-tensioner that only engages during the most severe impacts. Once this pretension is activated, the belt won’t retract and will need to be replaced. Even if it could unlock it, the webbing that makes up the belt has stretched, making it unlikely that it will maintain its integrity in the case of another accident.
Service King San Pedro in San Antonio, TX 78232
Sources: autoinsurance.org and AAA
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