Can your insurance claim be denied if you ignore a hail warning?

When you receive a weather warning from your insurer, do you have to rush to move your car under cover? We investigate the fine print.

For plenty of people, the only correspondence they receive from their insurer is their annual renewal notice in the mail.

However, for customers of certain insurance companies, severe weather warnings via text message are an increasingly regular occurrence.

In 2011, Budget Direct became the first insurer to implement hail warnings, alerting its customers with location-specific text messages via its so-called Hail Hero service.

RELATED: Who is liable for damage caused by potholes?
RELATED: What happens if someone else crashes my car?

Other insurers, like RAC Insurance in Western Australia, also issue more general severe weather or storm warnings based on your location.

While these alerts can be helpful, are they legally binding? And could ignoring them and leaving your car parked on the street potentially result in your subsequent hail or weather damage claims being denied?

Yes and no. Unfortunately, the answer depends entirely on the damage incurred, your insurer’s stance and your individual policy.

While one insurer told us it sends alerts purely for customer safety and they don’t have any bearing on claims, another said it expects customers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent damage.

“Most comprehensive or third-party car insurance policies will cover damage or loss to a vehicle in the event of a storm, flood or fire,” a spokesperson from the Insurance Council of Australia told Drive.

“It is important that insurance customers take the time to read their Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), which details what is and isn’t included under their insurance policy coverage.”

In the case of insurer Budget Direct, its hail warnings are a suggestion rather than a command.

“We send the alerts purely to help keep our customers and their possessions safe,” Jonathan Kerr, Chief Growth Officer at Budget Direct, explained.

“We deliberately do not attempt to do any post-alert customer-level tracking, we just want our customers to be safe.”

Mr Kerr said Budget Direct had sent out “millions of alerts” of this kind, prompting some confusion from customers.

“When we first launched Hail Hero in 2011, we did receive some queries from customers asking whether they would be able to make a hail-related damage claim, if they received the Hail Hero message and did not move their vehicle,” Mr Kerr said.

“We get less of those enquiries nowadays, but we remain very happy to confirm that receiving a Hail Hero message has no impact on their policy cover.”

Similarly, RAC WA Insurance customers will generally also be covered for storm damage if they are unable to action warning advice, but are advised to check the wording of their policy for any applicable exclusions.

However, a spokesperson for Suncorp Insurance said customers might have problems lodging a claim if it’s found they did not take reasonable steps to prevent weather damage to their car.

“Insurers warn customers of imminent extreme weather so that customers can take steps to protect their vehicle from being damaged,” a Suncorp spokesperson said.

“Customers are responsible for taking steps to prevent loss or damage to their vehicles, for example, moving it from rising flood waters if they are able to.

“If they do not meet their responsibilities, this may impact their policy coverage and their ability to claim. However, all claims are assessed on each individual situation and together we work with customers to determine options and finalise claims.”

To understand your own responsibilities, it’s best to consult your Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for your policy.

Additionally, don’t just assume because you have ‘storm cover’ that all kinds of weather damage are claimable.

“Most insurers regard rainwater runoff as part of storm cover, but some insurers won’t cover rainwater runoff or storm surge when the customer chooses not to take flood cover,” the Insurance Council of Australia said.

The post Can your insurance claim be denied if you ignore a hail warning? appeared first on Drive.