Curbing critter-related car claims
Ken Huening, CEO of CoverSeal, discusses rodent-related vehicle claims and how drivers can proactively protect their rides.
Owning a vehicle isn’t cheap. In 2022, a study from Triple-A showed that the average cost to own and operate a new vehicle was more than $10,700 per year. With that much money already being spent on maintaining a car, the last thing a driver — or their insurance carrier – wants is for preventable claims to push that number even higher.
For this episode of Insurance Speak, we were joined by Ken Huening, vehicle expert and CEO of CoverSeal, to discuss some of these preventable claims – specifically, the danger rodents pose to vehicles. A climate change-driven increase in these critters combined with the advancing technology being integrated into vehicles creates an interesting claims landscape.
Electric vehicles, in particular, are susceptible to this type of damage.
“Two things happened that made electric vehicles really susceptible to this problem,” Huening explained. “First thing is… the electronic content has really increased. It went from $300 of electronics to over $3,000 in electronics. So with that, there’s way more wiring.”
“The wiring harnesses… They’re these creations that allow the front, the middle, and the end of the car to be connected to all these different electronics that are in the powertrain, the seat controls, the safety braking, and the infotainment type of systems that are in a car. You get a rodent in there, they nibble on wires, they’re indiscriminate,” he continued. “They don’t just nibble on the powertrain or the safety wires, they just nibble. And when they do that, they end up cutting off different connections that you have and it causes these alerts to come up in your car, which then you have to take it into the dealership. The average cost of a rodent-damaged car is over $2,000.”
To hear our full conversation with Ken Huening, listen to the podcast above or subscribe to Insurance Speak on Spotify, Apple Music or Libsyn.