Normally, your home insurance doesn’t cover damages to your own vehicles because it doesn’t have such coverage. You need to have car insurance to claim for the damages to them. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are and where the damage occurred. If your car burns down in your garage as a result of a house fire, you still need Comprehensive auto insurance coverage to get compensation for it. Tough luck if you don’t have it because your homeowners policy won’t pay for it.
Usually, which policy pays for what is well defined. Your homeowners insurance is there to protect your home and not your vehicles for which you need to buy a separate insurance policy. In the same way, if you hit your garage door when you are driving out of it, your car insurance will only pay for the damages to your auto, providing you have Collision coverage and the loss is more than the deductible. But it will not pay for the damages to your garage, which is part of your home. So, you will need to make a claim on your home insurance for the repairs to the garage and a claim on your vehicle insurance for the repairs to the vehicle.
Furthermore, you are not liable for damages caused to your own automobile while it is parked in your driveway or garage as liability policies usually cover losses suffered by third parties as a result of your actions. You and your family members cannot make liability claims on your own policies but need to buy coverage for your own losses.
On the other hand, third parties can claim on your homeowner’s liability coverage if they believe it was your fault or negligence that caused the damage. For example, if strong winds knock down a tree in your property over the neighbor’s vehicle, they would have to make a claim on their Comprehensive auto insurance coverage for this tree damage because it is an act of nature and you aren’t at fault. There is not much you could do about the wind and therefore not responsible.
However, if you don’t secure your bins knowing there will be strong winds and it hits your neighbor’s car, you may be found negligent in this case, especially if the neighbor warned you about these bins in the past and you failed to take action. Your homeowners liability coverage would probably pay for such a damage. If not, your neighbor can take you to small claims court to make you pay for it. In addition, your neighbors Comprehensive vehicle insurance would pay for such damage regardless of where the flying object originated from.
Often things fly off properties or tree branches fall in bad weather or snow and auto insurance companies don’t go looking for which house it came from. It is your responsibility to insure your automobile properly and therefore, you need Comprehensive coverage if you want to be protected from such occurrences.
It is always a better option to arrange full coverage car insurance with Collision and Comprehensive, if it is valuable enough to warrant the additional premium you have to pay. This way, you don’t need to worry about your other policies or other people’s policies. Your auto policy will be there to pay if other policies don’t.
For example, you can still claim on your own Collision coverage in most cases if you are hit by another car and they are at fault but somehow they are dragging their feet to pay or don’t have insurance. Then, it is up to your own insurer to pursue the at fault driver or their insurers, while you can get on with your life after the repairs paid by your own policy. You will have to pay the deductible in this case.