AUTO INSURANCE ARTICLE

Are Portable Devices Inside Your Car Covered by Your Auto Insurance?

By: coppeneur

Many drivers are into fitting their cars with the most powerful techno-gadgets helpful for the urban highway fighter. There are drivers whose driving experience will never be complete without a GPS navigation unit in their cars, even if it means spending five to eight hundred dollars for it. Today, GPS navigation units are every driver’s best friend with its varied functions of street name announcement, time to destination calculation, automatic rerouting, etc. Their GPS virtually does everything save for steering the wheel. Then you also have drivers whose vans are turned into entertainment centers with flat TVs and portable DVD players on board.

Why not, you say? Sure, these are now becoming necessities in fact and not just luxuries for some. But the big question is, are portable devices inside your car covered by your auto insurance? Essentially, they are not. And with all these portable gadgets in full view of anyone looking through your untinted windows, aren’t you concerned?

The operative word here being portable, these gadgets in your car are not covered in your auto insurance policy. If it is still unclear for you, portable equipments are generally not covered while fixtures and permanent gadgets are. By portable we mean that you can take your GPS navigation unit with you when you leave the car. Permanent installations in your car would mean factory –installed gadgets. That’s why it’s a different story for higher-end vehicle models with permanently installed GPS units at the dashboard. For these, your auto insurance may actually do cover.

To be sure of this, it might be worth checking your auto insurance policy – particularly the clause on “endorsements” - when you frequently use expensive electronic gadgets in your car. You can ask your company or agent about the endorsement titled “Coverage for excess sound reproducing equipment, audio, visual and data electronic equipment, and tapes, records, discs and other media”. The endorsement clause allows you to specify items you want coverage for along with an increased coverage amount.

If your policy does not have an endorsement clause, is there another way to protect your high-value electronics in the car? Especially if not carrying them on board is not your option? Coverage may be provided by your homeowner’s or renter’s policy under your personal property coverage. However, you should be aware that you need to exceed your homeowner’s policy deductible before you can even have a claim. So for example, if your deductible is $1,500 deductible or more, your lost $500 GPS unit is far way less than your deductible. Or to explain it in another way, you can only recover your $500 GPS if you also lost your $300 portable DVD player, and your $1000 laptop.

So if you’re carrying portable high value electronics in your car, keep them out of sight when you’re not using it. Remove your cellphone, laptop, PSP, Ipod, from your dashboard or even from the seats. Better be careful than sorry. And always remember, if it’s portable, it’s not covered by your auto insurance.