Does Car Insurance Cover Vehicle Airbags?

If you are looking at replacing your vehicle airbag with a new one, it might cost you a lot of money as they are expensive. So, can you use your car insurance to reimburse the car airbag costs while changing them. Do car insurance policies offer vehicle airbag coverage? We will find out the answers to these questions in this post.

Do car insurance offer coverage for vehicle airbags?

Airbag is a support or cushion that provides safety to the driver and the passenger of a car. In case of a crash, the vehicle airbags system inflates to save the driver and passengers to avoid getting them injured.

Over the last many years, thousands of lives have been saved by the use of airbags. That is why the government has imposed many new laws to install a certain count of airbags in a car to save the driver and passengers from injury.

By using an airbag, one can prevent getting injured from the parts within the vehicle in case of collision. Because of government laws and the safety concern, most of the cars (even the economical ones) running on the Indian roads these days use airbags to protect the driver and the passenger of the vehicle.

Airbags can be installed in different places in a vehicle such as in the steering wheel area as front airbags, side airbags, backseat airbags, or knee airbags etc. However, once the airbag is used or it gets inflated during a crash, you have to get it replaced.

Though, you may think about using your comprehensive car insurance policy to replace the airbag or to get coverage against it. But the fact is, it is somewhat complicated.

Are airbags covered under insurance?

In India, third-party vehicle insurance and comprehensive vehicle insurance are the two kinds of insurances available. Now, as you know, a third-party insurance cover against damages that are caused to third – party property or people. On the other hand, a comprehensive policy allows protection against damages done to both your own car and the third-party car.

So, under a comprehensive car insurance policy, the vehicle owner can get protection against several damages caused to his/her car including damages caused by natural disasters or man-made calamities, accidents, theft and so on.

In the present scenario, many car manufacturers install several airbags to make sure that the vehicle owner and passengers receive optimum security. But the cost of getting them replaced is very expensive. Be it a luxury car or a standard one, the expenses of getting the airbags replaced is too much.  Moreover, the option of airbag replacement coverage is not there under the third-party insurance policies.

On the other hand, in case of comprehensive policies, they do offer airbag insurance cover but only to a particular limit. Since comprehensive policies for car insurance do not provide the cost of regular vehicle wear and tear called depreciation, they do not offer complete coverage for replacing airbags. But you can avail add-on riders of zero depreciation if you want your comprehensive car insurance policy to cover airbags completely.

Does depreciation have an impact on your vehicle insurance claim, how?

Usually, your comprehensive car insurance policy allows coverage to your vehicle airbags to a certain extent. The only reason why the airbags are not completely covered under comprehensive car insurance policy is depreciation rates.

So, what is depreciation? Depreciation means the value of your car depreciation caused by the wearing out of its components over a time period. In car insurance, the claim amount paid by the insurer is always less as compared to the market value of the car because of depreciation. If the car is old, the depreciation is more. Depreciation value is evaluated depending on the various parts of the car as well as its age.

Depreciation Rates as Per Vehicle Age

Age of Car	Depreciation Percentage Levied
Till 6 months	5%
From 6 months to one year	15%
From one year to two years	20%
From two years to three years	30%
From three years to four years	40%
From four years to five years	50%

Depreciation Rates As Per Vehicle Parts

Car Component (Parts)	Depreciation Percentage Levied
Parts made of fiberglass	30%
Paintwork	50%
Parts made of glass	Nil
Parts made of nylon/rubber/plastics	50%

As mentioned in the table above, a car owner loses half the airbag claim value due to car depreciation, especially for the part made from nylon. Also, the depreciation goes up as per the age of the vehicle. Hence, if you avail the zero depreciation add-on, you can get the complete reimbursement on the airbag without considering the vehicle’s depreciation value.

A zero-depreciation rider also benefits car owners under conditions like:

• For new drivers who have started driving recently
• For owners of expensive cars
• For owners of new cars
• If the vehicle’s spare parts are too costly
• If you drive mostly in areas that are accident prone