Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Pothole season has made its return to Western New York, and already a number of drivers have experienced damage to their vehicle after hitting a pothole. But is the damage one may experience with their vehicle due to potholes worth the time with an insurance company?
Dave Kirst, insurance sales and operations manager at AAA of Western and Central NY says around 2-in-10 drivers right now locally have received some type of damage due to potholes with their vehicles. A lot of people have called to see what type of coverage or what their options are after their vehicle gets damaged.
"A lot of times, unfortunately, it may not be worthwhile filing this on their claims," said Kirst in an interview with WBEN. "We see the average damage to a vehicle is somewhere between $400 and $600. The average deductible that someone has for collision is usually between $500-to-$1,000. So a lot of times, it's either below the deductible or right at the limit, where it almost makes it not even worthwhile to file that insurance claim."
Kirst notes there has already been a slight uptick this year in drivers calling to file a claim due to potholes.
"What we've seen, it's two out of every 10 have damage. In the Western New York region, that works out to somewhere between 6,000-to-12,000 claims that are being filed on average throughout the year due to potholes," Kirst said.
For anyone that wants to file a claim on their vehicle for damage due to potholes, Kirst advises drivers they need to check with their insurers to see if it is a covered claim.
"You do need to have collision coverage on your vehicle in order to file the claim for that start with," he said. "We like to review the coverages with any of the insurers that do call us up, make sure that it is a covered item. And then get in touch with a repair shop, see what the issue is. Sometimes it's just a tire, sometimes it's a bent rim. Sometimes it also gets up into the suspension, depending on how fast the vehicle was going when it struck the pothole, and the size of that pothole. So we're going to see a large variance in the actual claim amount."
The other piece of advice Kirst brings up for drivers is to make the claim for the vehicle as soon as possible.
"What we want to do is get this notice filed with the insurance carrier as quickly as possible so they can start off any repairs. And assuming that it is an actual covered thing, we'd like to review that with everybody prior just to make sure," Kirst said. "What you don't want to do is necessarily file a claim with the insurance carrier if it's something you don't have coverage for. Then it could negatively affect you in the future. Even though they didn't pay out, just filing a claim can affect your insurance rates."
While it does remain early in the pothole season, crews around the region have been keeping an early eye on the conditions of the roads to ensure potholes are being filled.
If a driver may experience pothole damage on the roadways and feel it's because of neglect from local highway departments, Kirst says it never hurts to file a claim against the town or the municipality. However, he notes it's very unlikely that the municipality would be on the hook for it.
"In order for them to pay out, they would have had to receive written notice of that specific pothole that caused damage to the vehicle prior to the claim being filed against them, and then they not repair that within a reasonable time period," Kirst explained. "In most cases, they haven't received that written notice ahead of time. When that happens, they deny the claim against them."
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