Slashed tires are covered by comprehensive insurance. However, comprehensive insurance is optional, so you must have this type of coverage for your insurer to replace your tires.
Remember, comprehensive coverage comes with a deductible, which is the amount you must pay before your insurance kicks in to cover the cost of replacement. Unless the cost to replace your slashed tires is several hundred dollars more than your deductible, it doesn’t make sense to file a claim.
For example, if you have two tires slashed, each costing $175 to replace, the total claim would be $350. If you have a comprehensive deductible of $500, you will wind up paying for the replacement since the deductible amount exceeds the repair cost.
- Comprehensive insurance replaces slashed tires on vehicles that have this type of insurance on their policy. But drivers must pay the deductible before this type of insurance kicks in.
- Insurers are only required to pay for the depreciated value of the tires to return things to the condition they were in before the damage occurred.
- Comprehensive insurance also pays up to the actual cash value of the card if it’s stolen, vandalized or damaged due to flooding, fire, hail and animal strikes.
Does car insurance cover slashed tires and replace them with new tires?
Your comprehensive insurance will cover new tires, but it’s possible that your insurance company may only pay for the depreciated value of the tires that were slashed. So, the bottom line is you get new tires, but your insurer only pays out for the amount of what it would have cost to replace them with tires of equal wear and tear.
Typically, you can’t receive “betterment” due to an auto insurance claim. The intention of the insurance policy is to return things to the way they were before the loss or damage occurred. Sometimes, when items are repaired or replaced, the policyholder will end up with something better than before the loss. This is defined as betterment.
To return your vehicle to the way it was before your tires were slashed would technically mean replacing the tires with ones that had the same mileage and wear and tear on them — or returning the vehicle to its state before the damage occurred. But it is doubtful that you would want used tires as replacements.
So, the insurance company will consider the mileage and the wear and tear of the tires and may require you to pay the difference between what they were worth and the price of new tires. So, you might get the depreciated value of the tires instead of the cost of new tires when you make this type of claim.
In addition to covering slashed tires, comprehensive insurance also pays for damage due to animal collisions, flooding, fire, hail and theft.
Does insurance cover three slashed tires?
Yes, your comprehensive coverage will cover three slashed tires, or any amount of slashed tires, whether it is one or four. It is a popular misconception that insurance companies won’t cover three slashed tires — that it would have to be all four for the car owner to file a claim — but that’s not true.
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— Michelle Megna contributed to this story.
