Car insurance companies decide what damage will be covered based on the cause of the damage. Whenever you file an insurance claim, the company will ask you for details regarding when and how the accident occurred. If you do not know what caused the damage, an insurance adjuster will inspect the damage to the vehicle and determine the most likely cause. In the case of a scratched door, there are three types of coverage that may apply, depending on what caused the damage: Collision Coverage and a Scratched Door If your vehicle was damaged as a result of impact with another vehicle, fixed property, pedestrian or bicyclist, your accident will be covered under collision. Collision coverage applies whether or not your vehicle was in use at the time; if someone hits your car while it’s parked, collision coverage will apply. If a child rides his bicycle close to your vehicle and scrapes the car’s paint with his handlebars, the damage will be paid under collision. This also covers damage caused by a car door opening into your vehicle and scratching your paint.

A collision accident can either be at-fault or not-at-fault. If you are not at fault for your accident, you can pursue the claim through the responsible party’s insurance. You may also file the claim with your company and receive a deductible reimbursement after the claim has been settled. Comprehensive Coverage and a Scratched Door Comprehensive coverage pays for damage to a vehicle that was not caused by a collision. Some of the perils covered by comprehensive include theft, vandalism and weather-related damage. If someone maliciously keys your vehicle, that damage will be paid under comprehensive coverage. This coverage would also pay for damage caused by hail or wind. Falling and flying objects, such as road debris, are also covered under comprehensive. There is usually no fault assigned to comprehensive claims unless the damage was caused maliciously. This means that you will usually not be able to recover your deductible in a comprehensive claim, but the claim should also not count against your insurance or cause your rates to increase.

Comprehensive deductibles are also often lower than collision deductibles. Uninsured Motorist Property Damage (UMPD) and a Scratched Door Some states offer UMPD coverage. Depending on state laws, you may be able to use this coverage to repair damage caused to your vehicle in a hit-and-run accident. Some states require that a responsible driver be known and proven uninsured in order to use UMPD; others allow UMPD coverage for hit-and-run claims. A common type of hit-and-run is a parking lot accident where the other driver scrapes your vehicle and leaves without contacting you. You may discover the scratch on your door and not know exactly when or where the damage occurred. If you live in a state where hit-and-run accidents are covered under UMPD, you will usually pay a lower deductible for the repairs than if you had used collision coverage. You may also be eligible for a rental car even if you do not have rental reimbursement coverage on your regular insurance policy. If you’re not sure what caused the damage to your vehicle, your insurance adjuster will be able to guess an approximate cause for the damage.

He might look for paint transfer, dents or other evidence of a collision. Once he determines what may have caused the accident, the adjuster will write an estimate for your damage. crystal door knobs houzzThis estimate will be based on the actual cost of parts plus an average labor cost. internal oak doors suffolkOnce you take the vehicle into the body shop, your shop will write a more detailed estimate and can request a supplement if the initial estimate was not high enough.roll up garage doors riverside ca A small scratch may not be worth repairing, especially if it costs less than your deductible. vertical doors for sale philippines

In this case, you can choose not to repair the vehicle or to pay for the repairs out of your pocket. Bear in mind, however, that any preexisting damage will be subtracted from any future estimates you receive for subsequent accidents. garage doors nottinghamshire ukThis means that if you have a scratch on your door and are involved in an another accident that causes further damage to the door, the repair cost of the scratch will be subtracted from the estimate for the second accident., 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 ratingframeless shower door cost estimatorSummaryTesla has yet another threat emerging.This particular threat threatens Tesla's image, reputation, trade-in values, demand for cars and the insurance rates charged to Tesla owners.Tesla still has a chance to fix the issue.If the issue is not fixed, the resulting reputation could lead to long-term subpar profitability.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is abundant in new stories to tell, and seems to face a possible new threat nearly every day. I swear I don't look for this stuff - it just crosses my path repeatedly. So here I am today, to yet again bring you a developing threat which, if left unchecked, will find its way into mainstream knowledge and lead to either significant increases in insurance rates to insure a Tesla Model S, or worse still, significant drops in demand for Tesla vehicles. This article will necessarily be based on anecdotal data, as no statistical repository exists for showing what I am about to unveil. threads (1)(2)(3)(4), though there are many more such threads. These threads document an ongoing pattern of price gouging by Tesla-authorized repair shops that's nearly unbelievable. In turn, this price gouging, along with the Model S apparently suffering more accidents than average, is already leading to an increase in insurance rates. forum these kinds of threads are being actively deleted.

Here is the anecdotal evidence I used: There are several factors underlying this problem, including: This article also explains the phenomenon - authorized repair shops have to invest in the certification and equipment, and they're out to milk it as much as they can while there's little competition: On average, Marvin says his shop has seen four or five Tesla vehicles each week since. And, he says, these are high-ticket jobs, similar to what his shop does for the A8s it works on. "I mean, you put a quarter panel on a Model S, and that's going to be an $18,000 job, compared to, what, $5,000 for the average [domestic] vehicle?" "That's a pretty big difference." If sustained over time, this phenomenon will have several important consequences: This problem will materialize over time, since initially insurance companies don't have data on accident rates or repair costs. But as this data arrives, there are already more and more testimonials of insurance rate increases.

Furthermore, the supposed safety of the Model S - which could limit injury liability regarding its passengers - is somewhat negated by the fact that the Model S is likely to lead to more injuries in the vehicles it hits, due to its mass/weight (as well as the apparent fact that Model Ss are in more accidents than average). Repair costs will also take time to filter through to consumers. Most of the reports are very recent, but these are things people will talk about, and through word-of-mouth, the issue will eventually be in the public domain. At that point, even if Tesla acts, it will already have the reputation of being tremendously expensive to repair - a reputation which could then take years to eliminate, and which could impact demand in the meantime. This is even more important because the kind of repairs involved are, in some instances, minimal. Nearly every conscientious consumer would have trouble buying a car if he knew a mere scratch could run into a $10,000 repair job.

Regarding the impact on used car values, this comes from the fact that non-authorized repair shops cannot get spare parts from Tesla. Thus, it might happen that even after a measure of competition is introduced, Tesla's repairs will remain higher than they would otherwise be. This, along with a reputation for it, will necessarily impact trade-in values. Also, Tesla is making it hard to rebuild salvaged cars, either through the need to inspect the cars itself or through the availability of spare parts only through authorized repair shops. This too can have an impact on insurance rates, as the insurance companies will have a harder time (and get lower values) when they try to sell "total loss" cars. Tesla can, quite possibly, fix this new threat. It will need to make its policies more flexible and give independent repair shops access to spare parts. The resulting competition should then control the existing price gouging. Tesla might also need to accept the fact that there are already established inspections for salvaged cars.

To hold its own cars to a higher standard, while noble, will also lead to impacts on the insurance/salvage system that the system is not equipped to handle. Either way, this phenomenon requires immediate action by Tesla. The more time goes by, the likelier this is to become "common knowledge" regarding the Model S or Teslas in general (given the stories with bricked Roadsters being incredibly expensive to fix). If Tesla allows such a reputation to take hold, it will take years for Tesla to clean it. Years Tesla will surely not have, once it gets direct competition in the EV segment. Many brands in Europe (Renault, Fiat, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, etc.) were relegated to having to sell their cars at a discount or seeing deeply declining trade-in values because of reputations with reliability or costly repairs. Even in the U.S., Chrysler probably still suffers from the same effect. Tesla does not want to go that route. On A Different Note - Reliability We've had a continuous debate regarding Model S reliability in the comment sections of previous Tesla articles.

At this point, there is precious little data regarding reliability. JD Power did not rate the Tesla Model S in its 2014 initial quality survey. The other remaining publication which saw it fit to say something, Consumer Reports, rated the Model S as being of average reliability, based on surveys it conducted. We've also seen news out of Norway of massive drive unit repairs running into the hundreds of vehicles affected. In this case, the repairs were needed because of a supposed lack of lubrication. car, which had to take two drive units, among many other fixes (including a new battery). There is thus, at this point, a general lack of data regarding Model S reliability. Yet, there's a website that's dedicated to collecting precisely this type of data, and it turns out that it has already collected data on 49 2013 Model Ss, which, while far from perfect as a sample, is starting to become relevant. has the data on the reliability of these vehicles as well as thousands of other models.

Using this data, we can compare the relative reliability of the Model S. This is how it looks:Anyway, I'd still leave the ultimate judgment for when JD Power finally includes the Model S in its initial quality survey. The ongoing issue regarding the high repair costs for cosmetic damage on the Tesla Model S presents a significant threat to Tesla's image. If allowed to go on long enough, this threat will destroy Tesla's reputation, will hit trade-in values and lead to higher insurance rates for Tesla owners and quite possibly lower demand for Tesla products. This threat is real, and requires Tesla to act. It seems to emanate mostly from the way Tesla has structured its authorized shop network and how it's restricting supply of parts to independent shops outside that network. Tesla stock is priced for a perfect future, and this kind of phenomenon reduces the chance that such a future will materialize. It also increases the chance that Tesla might acquire the kind of image that then leads to the need for discounting when competing with similar products.