One of the things we get asked all the time at Club meets, shows, on the phone and online is, “What am I not covered for?” Over the next few weeks, we will be compiling a series of short articles to help you understand a bit more about the exclusions in your PDS.
Please be aware, these articles focus on the major issues and should not be viewed as a substitute for appropriately looking through your PDS before deciding to take up coverage with Club 4X4.
Following on from information on when you will not be covered, this week we will talk about your Australia-wide personal valuables coverage and which items are specifically excluded within this.
The first thing to be aware of is that there are two types of contents coverage that we provide in every vehicle policy. One is labelled “personal effects cover” and is found on page 7 of our PDS. This covers accidental damage for up to $500 worth of contents that are inside your vehicle at the time of a claimable event. This does not have any specific exclusions as to what type of contents will be covered, it just falls into the amount payable for a vehicle claim. This type of coverage is fairly typical of almost all comprehensive vehicle policies on the market today – handy, but nothing special.
I can already hear you saying “great, but what about when nothing has happened to the vehicle but someone has nicked my gear from the campsite!?” With the aforementioned personal effects cover provided by most insurers, the answer would be “tough luck” (put into far nicer terms presumably). But not with us.
Every vehicle policy we sell comes with our market leading “Australia wide personal effects cover” of up to $2,000. Read more here. This is essentially like the “portable valuables” cover you can take on your home contents insurance for things that are commonly outside the house such as your camping gear, fishing rods, portable solar panels and the list goes on.
Therefore, to put it practically, if you have your solar panels set up to charge your auxiliary battery while you run off to the toilet, only to come back and find that they have been stolen, you WILL still be covered even though they were not secured inside the vehicle at the time. Items worth over $1,000 must be specifically listed on the policy to be covered for more than $1,000, and this benefit has an excess of $500. Upon quoting, there are options to take out more than $2,000 of coverage for this benefit.
The above is to give a brief background on the way we cover your contents, however the purpose of this series is to tell you when you are NOT covered.
Please read below;
You are not covered for loss or damage caused by or arising from:
- Any process of cleaning, repairing, altering, restoring or renovating. We feel this is fairly self-explanatory…
- Overwinding, electrical or mechanical breakdown, failure or derangement. This refers to damage or loss that is not part of accidental loss or damage and may be part of some form of manufacturers fault or wear and tear.
- Scratching or denting, if that is the only damage sustained. This refers to minor damage sustained that is merely superficial in the form of a dent or scratch. For example, if you drop your camera and it scratches the outside, yet is still in good working order we will not pay to repair the scratch. However, if you drop your camera and it damages the screen or lens for example and affects it’s working order, you will be covered.
The other key area to be aware of with your Australia Wide Personal Effects coverage is which items are specifically excluded;
- Any sporting equipment whilst in use. Key phrase: “whilst in use.” For example, if you snap your surfboard whilst surfing you will not be covered. However, it is still covered for accidental loss or damage whilst not in use (so long as it is no greater than 3 meters in length as shown below).
- Watercraft greater than 3 metres in length. Your body boards and shortboards will mostly be covered whilst NOT in use, however you will find that items such as stand up paddle boards and kayaks are generally larger than this and hence will not be covered as part of this benefit.
- Motorised vehicles or watercraft. Most commonly this refers to things such as boats, motorbikes, mopeds etc.
- Jewellery. If you drop the wedding ring in the dunes on Stockton Beach, not only will we not cover this, we also will not be coming out with a shovel to help you find it!
- Mobile (cell) phones, laptop or tablet computers, portable gaming equipment. Although these are very common items, they will not be covered under this benefit. They can be covered however, as part of the $500 personal effects cover if inside the vehicle at the time of the claimable event.
- Photographic equipment whilst in use in water. If your waterproof housing is not so waterproof, and your Go Pro is water damaged whilst filming out in the water; there will be no cover under this benefit.
- Items for sale, on display, exhibition or on consignment. If the item is for sale or even leased out to someone for a period of time, there will be no cover in this instance.
- Goods or items used for the provision of business services. This refers to specific business contents such as tools of the trade. If you have multi-purpose tools such as a hammer for pegging your tent it will still be covered. However, if it is a specific tool such as a plumber’s tube bender it will not be covered.
- Cash, cheques, credit or debit cards or negotiable documents. We have heard rumours that there are still some chequebooks getting around… Nevertheless, we will not cover them under this benefit.
- Stamp or coin collections. Fairly self-explanatory.
- Artificial limbs, wigs, dentures or dental appliances, hearing aids. If your Toupee flies out the window whilst cruising down the Nullarbor, we suggest you pull up and retrieve it, as they can be hard to find these days. Seriously though, the items mentioned here will not be covered as part of this benefit.
There you have it! Although this seems like a large list of exclusions, the important thing to remember is that if a content item is not mentioned in the exclusions in the PDS on page 9 it WILL be covered. These include but are certainly not limited to; fridges, camping equipment, recovery gear, cameras etc.
If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to comment below.
