[archtop]

Driving on the highway when the car in front of me hits something that goes flying over his car and tumbling towards me.I was doing 65 in the slow lane but there were cars all around.There was almost no time to react.Several pieces of 6-8' long aluminum angle trim ( looked like it came off a semi trailer) struck my car.Two pieces literally went thru my bumper and stuck there.I pulled over dragging one 6'piece and a 2' that had pierced my bumper and were stuck there.I managed to pull them out but saw that one had dented the intercooler.
I drove off shaking a bit to my destination and had my wife call the insurance company who asked if I had gotten the license plate of the semi that the crap came from, hello I was ducking pieces of metal flying at me at 60 mph.They tell her it would have been much better if I could have gotten the plate #,insurance companies suck.So I take it to a local body shop on the way home to get an estimate and the guy tells me not to worry cause my rates can't be affected by a road hazard as it is an "Act of God".Hey maybe he's right I live in the Bible belt after all.
So does anyone know:
A) Do I have to take it to a BMW approved body shop since its a leased vehicle
B) Will I be penalized by my insurance company or is it truly immune from that liability as an "Act of God"

Also the cars is registered to my company under commercial insurance.
**By the way the body shop looked like this repair was gonna be Xmas time and started writing up scratches that looked to me could have been buffed out.

[methodtim]

Ahem...

[yazz]

+1^

[Haywire]

This thread doesnt need pics for the point to get across...he isnt asking as much about the damage, more so the rates of his insurance.

act of god - not sure if it falls under that category, thats usually for natural disasters, hail and things of that "nature"

but for road debris, that would be covered by your insurance and your rates SHOULDNT go up...that doesnt mean that they wont look for another reason to screw you. If you have any tickets that never showed up in a hike of your insurance, you can count on them taking a look into your abstract and bumping up the premiums when you renew.

other than that, you should be able to make your claim without issue, especially with the information that you said you gathered.

and one more thing, take it to more than one shop, especially if you think THESE guys might be writing up more than they need to.

[to_riffic]

yea, u wont need to go to a bmw approved shop. and ur insurance shouldn't go up

[Refujeet]

If it is leased, I think you need to go to a BMW approved repair facility.