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How Can I Make My Insurance Claim If My Car Lost During Car Wash

How Can I Make My Insurance Claim If My Car Lost During Car Wash Blog
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Responsible car owners understand the importance of maintaining their vehicles. Apart from ensuring that you change oil and replace any obsolete or non-working parts, you also need to keep your car clean. It’s best to leave that to the professionals, which is why you regularly take the vehicle to a car wash. It’s interesting how we trust car washes with the keys to our vehicle. We leave the car there for hours and tell them that we will pick it up hours later. During that time, we don’t know who enters or what they do with our vehicle. The only sure thing is that they have the keys. What happens if your vehicle gets lost during a car wash? How to file an insurance claim, and is that even possible?

Can You File An Insurance Claim If They Lose Your Vehicle In A Car Wash?

We are sorry to break the news to you; but the answer is NO. You can’t file an insurance claim if they lose your car, and we will explain why. Everything starts when you arrive at the car wash. You talk to the staff and agree that they wash your car. That’s why you leave your keys, and you might go and finish other business until the vehicle is washed. Once you return, you realize that your car is missing, and nobody knows what happened to it. Your instinct tells you to file an insurance claim, especially if you have a comprehensive policy. These policies protect you against theft and damage, but that’s not applicable in this case. It’s because you made a crucial mistake in the process – you handed the keys to the attendant and left.

The insurance policies consider this negligence, which is why the insurer will refuse to pay for your loss. Giving the keys to someone willingly means that you weren’t responsible for your vehicle. It doesn’t matter what happened after that. Perhaps the attendant switched the keys, and someone used the opportunity to go home with a better vehicle. Maybe a person from the staff saw a chance to grab the keys and drive away with the car. Either way, you are the one who acted negligently by giving them the keys, and that’s why you can’t file a claim.

What Can You Do If You Lose Your Car During a Wash?

The best possible prevention is to stop your car from getting lost in the first place. You can do that by sticking around while they wash it. Make sure the vehicle never leaves your sight, and you will prevent any mishaps. We understand that it can be tedious, but it’s the only way to stop any potential problems. You have another alternative, and that’s to sue the car wash company. The odds are this will be a long and tedious process. The company might claim that they haven’t even got your vehicle. That’s why it’s crucial to take a receipt or acknowledgment that they have your car once you bring it to the wash center. Many people don’t do this – they leave the vehicle and the keys without proof that the staff took their car. Even if you have to pay upfront, take the receipt as proof. If anything goes wrong, it will be confirmation that they took your car, helping you in a lawsuit.

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