Your tyres and wheels may well be covered by your standard car insurance, or you could opt to get a policy that will give you added protection. There are several tyre and alloy wheel deals out there for instance.
Find out what these types of policies will (and won’t) cover, how they work and whether it’s worth it for you.
Ultimately it depends on your level of coverage and how the damage happened. Should the damage to your tyres and wheels happen as a result of someone crashing into you, then their insurance will pay out.
If you have a comprehensive policy, then you should be able to claim on tyre and wheel damage, but there will be exceptions.
Normal road use often isn’t covered for instance. Given this includes getting punctures and cuts while out driving, this means in most circumstances, your car insurance won’t cover tyre damage.
Even if you do have cover, you have to seriously think whether it’s worth making a claim. You’ll have agreed to an excess on your policy, which is the amount you pay before the insurer starts covering the cost, and this excess amount might be higher than the cost of repairing or replacing any damaged rims or tyres.
It depends on two factors: what type of policy you have and how it happened.
A comprehensive insurance deal may well pay out if it happens as a result of vandalism – for example if someone slashes your tyres in the night.
If it happens as a result of driving over a nail, then the insurer may well refuse.
Here again, you will have to weigh up whether it’s worth claiming if the cost of replacing the tyre is going to be much lower than your excess.
| Response | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Comprehensive coverage | 53.53% | 48.04% |
| Personal injury protection | 28.26% | 21.99% |
| Uninsured driver protection | 24.46% | 15.36% |
| Third party fire and theft | 20.11% | 13.4% |
| Misfuelling cover | 15.22% | 9.34% |
| Third party only | 11.41% | 7.08% |
| I don't have a premium car insurance | 6.25% | 8.73% |
| None of the above | 3.26% | 2.41% |
Even if your standard car insurance policy covers you for repairing or replacing tyres and rims, there are plenty of exclusions and limits. Also, you might be put off making a claim because of the excess fee.
To address these issues, you could take out an additional insurance policy that protects your tyres and covers your wheels in a variety of circumstances, including damage from a puncture or from someone sticking a knife into your tyres.
So even if you drive past a building site and a piece of debris bursts the tyre, this type of insurance would have your back, whereas a normal insurer might flat out refuse.
You can usually add this coverage to your current car insurance policy or buy it through a specialist provider, and you can typically make several claims a year too.
Many people may well decide that it’s pointless. To work out whether it’s worth it, you’ll need to work out how much your tyres and wheels will cost to get fixed.
In many instances, the price for repairing and replacing each tyre and wheel may only be a few hundred pounds.
Given this is roughly what a tyre and wheel insurance policy will cost, you might decide this additional level of coverage isn’t for you.
Those with more expensive cars and expensive alloy wheels may well decide it is worth it, particularly if you’re likely to make multiple claims or if you’re prone to scuffing your wheel for instance. A few other reasons it would make sense to get this add-on include the following:
Compare policies by looking at the conditions in which they will and won’t pay out. In tyre and rim policies, look at the following:
Even having a comprehensive policy won’t guarantee your wheels and tyres are protected, so specialist insurance could be a cost effective way of repairing and replacing them.
You’ll need to first read your policy handbook and see what your car insurance covers. If it doesn’t protect your tyres and wheels, then you’ll need to weigh up if an additional tyre and wheel insurance deal is worth it.
This will boil down to how expensive your particular car’s wheels and tyres are as well as how prone you are to damaging them.
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