Collision and comprehensive

Collision

Pays to repair or replace your car when it collides with something: another vehicle, a pole, a curb, a wall, or the road itself in a rollover.

It pays whether or not the accident was your fault. If the other driver is at fault and insured, their liability normally pays instead — but collision is what gets your car fixed now rather than after the fault argument is finished. Your deductible is usually refunded if the carrier recovers from the other side.

Comprehensive

Pays for almost everything that is not a collision — often called "other than collision" on the policy for exactly that reason.

• Hail, wind and flood
• Theft of the car, and damage from a break-in
• Fire and explosion
• Vandalism
• A falling tree or falling debris
• Hitting an animal — which is comprehensive, not collision
• Glass, including a cracked windshield

How the deductibles work

Each coverage has its own deductible, and you choose both. One claim, one deductible — the one belonging to whichever coverage is paying.

Raising a deductible lowers the premium immediately. The right number is the largest amount you could produce tomorrow without it being a crisis; below that you are over-insuring, above it you are not really covered.

What they actually pay

Both pay the actual cash value of the car at the moment of loss, minus the deductible — what it was worth that morning, not what you paid for it and not what it costs to replace it new.

On a financed car that number can be less than the loan balance, and the difference is yours unless you carry gap coverage.

When to drop them

There is a point on an older car where the annual premium for both coverages approaches what the carrier would ever pay out, because the pay out is capped at the car’s value minus the deductible.

It is arithmetic about that specific car, not a rule about age or mileage. Ask what the two cost separately and compare. And if the car is financed or leased, the decision is not yours to make — the lender requires them.