When most people think about car accidents, collisions between vehicles come to mind. However, many incidents involve only a single driver and are known as “single-vehicle accidents.” Even if another driver isn’t involved, if you get into this type of accident, you may still find that your car insurance provides some coverage and financial support.
One common cause of single-vehicle accidents is the presence of potholes in the road. In parts of the country where the weather shifts between extreme heat and cold, this repeated freezing and melting can create hazardous conditions while damaging roadways. If you run through a pothole and damage your car, are you protected by your insurance? Here’s what to consider.
How Auto Insurance Protects Your Car
The process of making a claim on your insurance begins right after the accident itself. To protect yourself, the first thing to do is document the incident. Take pictures of your car, the area where the accident happened, any other cars involved, and yourself in case you experienced an injury. These pictures can serve as your first line of defense in justifying an insurance claim.
Many insurance providers offer apps to make filing a claim much easier than it used to be. You can log into this app to directly make a claim, filling out the digital form and using the pictures that you took to provide support for your statements. While the app won’t make the decision for you about what kind of protection you have, it may help you get a representative from the insurance company to look at the situation faster.
These representatives are often insurance adjusters who perform the task of seeing if the claim warrants a payout and if the car is a total loss. Often, these adjusters understand that you’re going through a tough time when you file a claim, as you may have many worries about what will happen next. Nevertheless, they are ultimately employees of the insurance company and represent company interests, which is important to keep in mind.
Once the adjuster assesses the claim, the insurance company can process the full claim and issue a payout if the accident was covered under your insurance. For single-vehicle accidents, these investigations can be relatively brief and result in a quick payout, as there are fewer variables in the situation.
Does Your Insurance Protect Against Pothole Damage?
Pothole damage is often considered outside the scope of your responsibility as a driver. While situations like driving off the road may happen due to driver behavior, such as reckless driving, potholes can be surprisingly hard to see. In addition, the damage they cause can come just from driving normally. The part of auto insurance that covers this kind of damage is collision insurance, which is fairly common, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
Depending on the state where you live, insurance requirements can vary significantly for securing minimum legal coverage. This minimum coverage is far from comprehensive, and no state requires you to purchase collision insurance, as reported by AutoInsurance.org. If you haven’t purchased this type of coverage with your policy, you may find that these accidents aren’t covered. Despite the lack of legal requirement, many auto financing companies do require collision coverage while your car is being paid off, so this additional requirement may come in handy if you’re driving around and feel your car dipping too low too fast as you encounter a pothole.
Resource Links
“Do You Have to Have Auto Insurance in Every State?” via AutoInsurance.org
“Car Accident Statistics for 2023” via Forbes
“Does My Auto Insurance Cover Damage Caused by Potholes?” via the Insurance Information Institute