After your car windscreen is broken and if you did insure your car for windscreen cover during your motor insurance policy renewal, you can send your car for repair and to replace the broken glass windscreen or windows at the panel workshops for windscreen repairs appointed by your insurance company.
Your panel workshop repairer will help you with the filing of claim documents and get you to submit some written personal data with a copy of your insurance policy, identification car, driving license and the car ownership registration card and the cause for the broken windscreen and accompanying police report if it is required.
After your signing of the claim form, they will submit on-line or via fax to obtain the approval from your insurance company’s claim department. Once approved, they will start the repair job on your car happily knowing that your insurance company will reimburse them the cost of the windscreen and labor charge and a margin of profit.
Of course, your insurance company will inform them and you of the maximum limit of coverage you are entitled to claim. If the cost of repair and replacement is more than the limit of your sum insured, they will be asked to collect cash payment from you to pay the difference in amount of the additional cost of repair billed by the panel workshop.
This instance of having to top-up the cost of repair can be avoided if you have adequately insured your windscreen value by checking with your insurance agent or with the car franchise for your car model by providing them with your car chassis number and year manufactured at the inception of your renewal policy.
However, this may not be sufficient again if there are upwards fluctuation of the windscreen cost midway within the period of insurance and you are likely to encounter another shortfall or under insured when the claim is filed in.
Have you heard of the Idiom ” Lightning Never Strikes Twice In The Same Place”? Well the myths are untrue but the weatherman and NASA say the phenomena of lightning striking on the same spot over a given period of time when there are thunderstorms over the place, the likelihood of it happening is inevitable as it recharge after the discharge of electricity caused by the formation of high volume of positive and negative charge in the sky between the cloud and the ground.
Here’s an excerpt from January 14, 2003 – (date of web publication)NASA’s website: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0107lightning.html
Lightning occurs when there is a discharge of electricity between large volumes of excess positive and negative charge that accumulate in thunder clouds. Lightning most commonly occurs in thunderstorms, but it also can occur in snowstorms, sandstorms, in the ejected material over volcanoes. Most lightning takes place within or between clouds; on average, only about one-third of all discharges actually strike the ground. The peak temperature in a lightning channel is around 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
According to the National Weather Service, lightning causes an average of 93 deaths and 300 injuries in the United States each year. The National Severe Storms Laboratory recommends that a safe distance from a previous flash is at least 10 to 13 km (6 to 8 miles) as opposed to the 3 to 5 km (2-3 miles) that experts had previously advised.
The article appears in the latest print issue of the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, and publication of the results was funded entirely by NASA.”
Now, after making a windscreen damage claim against your insurance company, your insurance company will issue immediately an endorsement to delete off the limit of windscreen coverage from your car insurance policy to reflect that you have used that section of windscreen insurance benefits.
If your car insurance policy is valid and not yet due for renewal when you experienced the car windscreen breakage in the middle of the annual insurance policy term, you still need to protect your car windscreen and glass windows from another incident of accidental breakage for the remaining period of your running policy.
Therefore, our advice to you, the insured can instruct your car insurance agent to arrange with your insurance company to reinstate the optional cover for the same limit of windscreen insurance coverage for your car.
Supposing you did insured for sum of RM1,000 for the cost of windscreen damage replacement, your insurance premium calculator will calculate RM1,000 multiply by 15% equals RM150. Remember the insurance premium calculator formula given to you in my other post?
You need to pay this premium of RM150 to your insurance company and they will issue an endorsement to invoke the reinstatement clause on your car insurance policy in Malaysia. Your reinstatement is done and you are covered for windscreen damage again till end of your insurance remaining period.
However, under the Malaysian Tariff guidelines, you are not allowed to reinstate more than the limit at first inception of renewal policy before the claim. Another point to note is the internal rule that you cannot go to another insurance company or another insurance agent of the same insurance company to reinstate the windscreen insurance cover.
If you need further advice on your car insurance in Malaysia, please contact us.
As you pointed out, it is a risk not to have coverage after the windscreen replacement. With the original bills etc, can I submit a claim 6 months after the breakage? My windscreen coverage is for RM5,000 so it is costly to reinstate.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I humbly apologise for delay in replying to your question. In general, most insurers in the policy contract stated the accidents and claims procedures for covered terms and conditions for claim processing similar to “We must be notified in writing or by phone in either case with particulars of the vehicles involved, date of accident, and, if possible, a brief description of the circumstances of the accident within the specific time frame as follows after an event which may become the subject of a claim under this policy: – (a) Within seven (7)) days if you are not physically disabled or hospitalised following the event; (b) Within 30(30) days or as soon as practiceable if you are physically disabled and hospitalised as a result of the event; (c) Other than (a) or (b), a longer notification period may be allowed subject to specific proof by You.”. Therefore, your question on submission of a claim for replacement of windscreen is subject to condition (c) which required your specific proof for the delay of 6 months after breakage. You need to write to your insurer to explain why the delay and if it is reasonable and acceptable by the insurer, they may allow it if the claim is genuine.
As to paying additional premium for reinstatement cover of RM5,000, the amount is 15% of RM5,000 or RM750 plus Goods and Services tax(GST) of 6% for the remaining periods, You will have to decide the risks taking for that period to commensurate with cost. In some situations, we have came across that clients would rather take the risks upon themselves where the remaining periods were just a few weeks or a month or two from their next annual policy renewal dates.
The delay can be due to the time taken to order for the specific windscreen which the repair workshop do not have for your car model or that you have taken some reasonable steps such a lodging a police report at the point of breakage but have not been able to send it for repair at your local workshop as they do not have the parts which are genuine that you insisted. Other than that, insurer may not honor your claim as it may cast doubts about a possible attempted fraudulent claim if the evidence are not supported.
From the benefit of our discussions, we like to share with visitors, first and foremost, at the incident of windscreen breakage due to other than road accident collisions, the insured should immediately inform the insurer through its agent in writing or through phone or communicate verbally if the agent was present. The next thing to do is to snap a picture of the windscreen on the spot showing the breakage before repair and the four angles of the whole vehicle and the milage or kilometer reading on your speedometer dashboard. If there is a nearby panel car repairer workshop or car windscreen repairer workshop appointed by the insurer with PIAM certification, the procedure for claim is simply driving it or having it towed to that panel workshop to lodge a claim. You can arrange with the panel workshop to have them assess the damage and take the pictures while you arrange to submit the copy of your car registration card, driving license and identity card to them. They will help you submit the claim form to your insurer and get their quotation approved by your insurer before they proceed to repair or replace it. In this situation, the requirement for police report may be dispensed with. If the insured choose to go to a non-panel car/windscreen repairer, you will need to get the workshop to help you snap pictures as mentioned above of the before and after repair and give you their invoice and official receipt. Make sure you go to the nearest police station to lodge a report of the windscreen breakage and get a copy of the report for your claim submission before you send for repair or replacement. You also need to go to the insurer to get the claim form to complete and submit all documents mentioned and pictures as evidence for your claim.
Should your claim be rejected innocently, you should contact your insurer to find out the reason and appeal to them if it is a genuine mistake and delay beyond your control as long as you have all records such as your immigration records on your passport to show you were away from the country on employment and business related assignments immediately after the incident or that you are not aware that you actually have a windscreen cover in your renewal policy all along since policy inception from day one and etc. Any unsatisfactory explanation is likely to be rejected as insurer have valid reasons to belief it could be a fraudulent claim. Such instances are not unheard off in the past due to unethical practices and collusion by parties involved. With today’s professionalism in the insurance industry, stricter compliance to regulatory requirements and high level of trust and security, most fraudsters are weeded out.
Thank you.