It is twenty past five on a November evening, the light is mostly gone, and you are coming home on a two-lane road with woods on both sides. A doe steps out of the tree line. You brake, she freezes, and there is a sound you will remember for a while. Then the second deer comes out behind her, because there is almost always a second one.
Collisions with deer run highest in the fall, when the rut has them moving at dawn and dusk and crossing roads they ignore the rest of the year. Around here that means the stretches of the Casey Highway, 81 and 84 that cut through woods, and plenty of back roads in Lackawanna County that nobody would think to call dangerous in July.
The insurance side of it is simpler than people expect, with one exception that catches a lot of drivers.
Hitting the deer is usually comprehensive
On most personal auto policies, striking an animal is handled under comprehensive coverage rather than collision. Comprehensive is the part of the policy that answers for things you did not really cause: hail, a falling limb, theft, and wildlife running into the road. The auto insurance page lays out how comprehensive and collision split the work, and the deer is the example almost everyone has in mind.
That classification matters for two reasons. The first is the deductible. Your comprehensive deductible and your collision deductible can be different amounts, and the comprehensive one is the one that applies here. The second is how the claim is generally viewed afterward. Carriers typically treat a comprehensive claim for an animal strike differently from an at-fault accident, though how a given carrier weighs claims history at renewal varies, and so do the rules from state to state.
Swerving is usually collision
Here is the exception. If you swerve to miss the deer and hit a guardrail, a pole, a parked car or a tree, the damage to your car is generally handled under collision, because the car struck an object rather than an animal. Depending on the carrier and the circumstances, that may also be treated as an at-fault accident.
So the decision you make in about half a second can move the claim from one side of the policy to the other. It is a big part of why the common driving advice is to brake firmly, stay in your lane and avoid a hard swerve, especially into oncoming traffic or off the shoulder. A dented hood is a far better outcome than a rollover into a ditch, and that is true before the insurance even enters into it.
Nobody is suggesting you aim for the deer. If contact is going to happen anyway, though, staying straight is usually safer for you and simpler for the claim.
If you only carry liability
This is the gap we see most often in the fall. Plenty of people drop comprehensive and collision once a car is paid off and getting older, which can be a perfectly reasonable call. It also means a deer strike is entirely out of pocket. Liability coverage pays for damage you cause to other people and their property. It does nothing for your own car.
If you are driving an older car on liability only, it is worth checking the math rather than assuming. Put the cost of adding comprehensive alone next to what a bumper, grille, headlight assembly and radiator would run you. On some cars that trade is easy to make, and on others it makes no sense at all. And if the car is financed or leased, the lender almost certainly requires both coverages already.
Who pays for what
On a typical claim, comprehensive pays to repair your car, minus your deductible, up to the car’s actual cash value. If the repair runs past what the car is worth, the carrier may declare it a total loss and pay the value instead.
A few other pieces of the policy can come into play:
- A deer that comes over the hood can take out the windshield. Glass is usually part of comprehensive, and some policies carry separate glass terms or deductibles.
- Towing and a rental car are often optional add-ons. If you have them, they help a lot while the car is in the shop. If you do not, the tow and the rental are on you.
- Medical bills for you and your passengers generally run through the first-party medical benefits on your own Pennsylvania policy, since there is no other driver to claim against.
Exactly what applies depends on the coverages you chose and on your carrier’s policy form, which is why the declarations page is the document to pull out if you are not sure.
What to do at the scene
Get the car off the road if it can be driven safely, and turn on your hazards. Stay away from the deer. An injured animal can kick hard enough to hurt someone badly.
If anyone is hurt, if the car cannot be driven, or if the deer is blocking the road, call the police. A police report is not always required for a comprehensive claim, but it rarely hurts and it can settle questions later.
Then document it. Photograph the damage to the car, the road, and the animal if you can do so safely. Hair or blood on the bumper sounds grim, but it helps show the damage came from a deer and not from a guardrail. Note the time and the location. Call the claim in promptly, while the details are fresh.
Before you drive any further, look under the front of the car for leaking fluid and check that the lights still work. A deer strike that looks cosmetic can crack a radiator or knock a headlight out of aim.
Before the next one
The best time to look at this is before you are standing on a dark shoulder. If you are not sure whether you carry comprehensive, what your deductible is, or whether towing and rental are on the policy, a quick look at your declarations page will tell you. If it still is not clear, call us.
We are an independent agency, so we can compare how several carriers handle comprehensive deductibles, glass and rental coverage, and tell you whether adding comprehensive to an older car is worth it. Call the office at 570-344-0211, text 570-487-3386, or send us your declarations page and we will go through it with you.
This article is general information, not insurance advice. How an animal strike, a swerve or a single-vehicle accident is classified, along with deductibles, optional coverages and how claims affect renewal, varies by carrier, by policy form and by state. Talk with a licensed agent at Bartal Insurance about your own vehicle and policy before making a decision.