My car got broken into this weekend and they stole $1500 of stuff; did my insurance cover it?

Photo by: joeshlabotnikSo I live at the end of a cul de sac and it is a relatively new development so no thought was put into lighting it up apparently and this weekend my car was sitting in my driveway and someone popped the back window out with a screwdriver, breaking the window. The glass repair guy told me that this was a common tactic as it makes the noise of the window breaking quieter, so ignore this last sentence if you’re a thief and plan on breaking windows.Actually, I’m pretty sure people that steal from cars at houses don’t read investing blogs, so I feel that info is probably fine to leave out there.Anyway, they broke in and stole my stereo system, my kids dvd system (I don’t know what people did before the invention of tvs for 2 and 3 year olds in cars) my bluetooth headset, and a stack of DVDs that I reckoned in total cost about $1500.

I called the police station and they took my information, and being a first time victim I asked when someone was coming out. Silly me, they don’t care about that; they have bigger fish to fry. They said to give the case number to my insurance company and go from there.

So I called up my good buddy Geico, knowing that I have full coverage on my vehicle, I’m assuming they’d cover this. Welp, contrary to my popular belief, they don’t. They cover the vehicle itself, so they’ll cover any damage to that vehicle, not the property inside it. So at this point, they’ll cover the window (withy my $100 deductible). They left me saying they’ll cover the window and to call my HOMEONWERS insurance company for the stuff inside the car.

I get Allstate on the call (as you know I recently switched over to them) and I tell THEM my story now, and they tell me no problem, everything should be alright. I know I have a $750 deductible so I figure I’ll get $750 at least back for the $1500 because the custom stereo system itself was almost $800. Unfortunately they tell me that they don’t cover the stereo because “it is attached TO the car, therefore, they can’t cover that and to contact Geico about that.” They go on to tell me that if, with the subtraction of the stereo system, if I’ll even hit the $750 deductible. Clearly I won’t, and now am upset to say the least as it looks as though the $1500 bill is going to cost me $1500.

Photo by: freeparkingI mull it over and decide who to call up and complain to, and I’m getting quite angry at this point. So by the luck of the draw, Geico gets the brunt of my anger as they were on hiatus from the Allstate call. I call Geico back up and ask them how they are not covering the $800 stereo system that was hacked out of my car and they give me this schpiel about it being an “after market” system and that I should have told them that when I signed up with them 6+ years ago.I politely say back that I have paid them $130ish dollars per month for 6+ years paying them almost $10,000 and I have never had to use them. I am just asking for the $800 back to replace my stereo system as technically, it IS part of the car.

At this point the lady tells me that they “may” be able to replace the cost of the factory stereo and I said that is a start. I said, “I would like to have someone come out and assess my damages as I have my stereo wires all over the place, likely pulled out and yanked beyond standard repair, I have hacks in my dashboard from them trying to get it out. I have a screwdriver mark carved out on my door frame, and coat hanger marks from them trying to jimmy rig it open, and I can smell something burning when I start the car up.

They tell me they’ll send someone out shortly. This was yesterday, and I haven’t heard anything new yet. They can expect a call from me tonight.

Lessons learned from this “exercise”:

1. Don’t leave your car parked at the end of a dark cul de sac with video equipment show. This is partly my fault and I learned this the hard way now, I accept responsbility for it – but I pay $200ish per month for homeonwers and car insurance, they need to step up when this happens.

2. Declare your after-market products in your car to your car insurance company. They’ll cover them for a small fee more per year, but apparently they don’t tell you this until it happens, call them immediately if you have something non-standard in your car!

3. Clean your garage out to have your car fit in there, or leave your dumpy car outside. I was parking MY car in the garage (that has nothing of value in it) and leaving the suburban outside (that had all the goodies in it).

4. I remember reading something I was watching on tv once that mentioned all insurance companies first response is “we don’t cover that” – and then if you call back to complain you get the tier 2 guys that will help you. So another takeaway is to complain more than once about it.

Anyone had a similar experience? Better insurance companies? Recommendations?

Filed Under: Debt • Insurance • financial education