The Damage That Happens While Parked

Most mountain winter damage is not dramatic. It is a bumper against a berm, a wheel into a curb that snow had hidden, and a lot full of cold people reversing without much visibility. None of it makes a good story and all of it costs money.

Berms and buried everything

A plow berm is packed snow, and by the third day of a storm cycle it may be packed snow with ice, gravel and whatever the plow scraped up inside it. Backing into one at walking pace bends bumper covers and cracks the plastic behind them, and reversing sensors read it as a soft obstacle right up until it is not. Once there is a foot of snow on a resort lot, curbs, wheel stops, drainage channels and low signs are all invisible, and the wheels and lower bodywork find them.

• Walk the space before you back into it if you cannot see the ground. Thirty seconds against a wheel and a control arm is a good trade.
• Park nose-out where you can, so you leave with visibility instead of reversing into a lot that has filled up around you.
• Do not park against a berm face, because plows come back and berms grow overnight. Vehicles get buried and clipped.

Which coverage handles it

This is where people guess wrong. Backing into a berm, a post or another vehicle is a collision loss, because it is an impact — it does not matter that nothing was moving fast or that no other car was involved. Damage from something falling on the car, like snow and ice sliding off a roof onto the hood, generally falls under comprehensive. A plow throwing snow, ice or gravel against your parked car sits somewhere that varies with the facts and with the carrier, so ask yours how they would classify it rather than assuming. The practical point is that liability-only coverage responds to none of these.

Ice and snow coming off other vehicles

A slab off the roof of the vehicle ahead is a real hazard on Sierra highways, and it is one people underestimate because it is snow. It arrives with speed and it can be ice rather than powder. Clear your own roof before you set off — it is a courtesy that takes two minutes and it is also the thing you would want the truck ahead of you to have done. If something comes off a vehicle in front and hits yours, it is generally a comprehensive matter unless it caused you to strike something, in which case it can become a collision claim instead.

Hit while parked, with nobody around

Resort lots produce a lot of unattended damage. Vehicle Code section 20002(a) requires a driver involved in an accident resulting only in property damage to stop immediately at the nearest safe location and either locate and notify the owner, presenting a driver's license and vehicle registration, or leave a written notice in a conspicuous place on the damaged vehicle with the driver's and owner's names and addresses and a statement of the circumstances, and notify the police without unnecessary delay. If someone hits your car and leaves no note, that is a hit and run — report it, photograph everything including the surrounding vehicles and any camera you can see, and call your carrier. Whether your own coverage responds depends on which coverages you carry and how your policy treats an unidentified driver, so ask specifically.

Salt, sand and the slow damage

Mountain roads get treated, and the treatment ends up in your wheel wells and underbody. It is corrosion rather than a claim, but it is the reason a car that spends winters going up the hill ages differently from one that does not. A wash that includes the underside, a few times a winter, is the cheapest maintenance on this page.

Ask what your deductibles look like at different levels — on small parking damage, the deductible is usually the whole decision.