About two months ago a terrible hail storm hit my area. Actually it seemed to only hit my neighborhood. It happened one evening when I had a class. There was no sign of a storm erupting when I was at school. But on the drive home, I winded up smack dab in the middle of the worse hail I have ever seen.

It is so weird how the weather works. The school I attend is less than 10 miles from my house. And yet while it was a beautiful starry night over the university campus, it was thundering, lightening, raining and hailing over my back yard.

Anyway there was baseball sized hail banging down on my car. The rain was so heavy that I could not see two inches ahead of me. I noticed many other cars pulling on side the road to wait it out. But I kept going. I wanted to make it home to check on my family. And I made it… well almost.

I rolled through what I thought was a small puddle of water. As it turns out, it was more like two foot pool of water. And here is where I learned a valuable lesson… just because conDUCKtors can turn their vehicle into a boat does not mean we are all so skillful. After toughing out through nearly 5 miles of basically driving blind and dodging baseballs… the little engine that could, could do no more. My car came to a complete stop… just 3 blocks away from my house.

I thought… well isn’t this just great! I got out of my car and stepped right into knee high water. It was dark, the water was cold and the rain and hail was still coming. I was praying that lightening did not get to close and that snakes not nip at my legs. It was really kind of scary. But eventually I made it home.

The only thing that remains of this whole experience is the fight with my insurance company and itchy legs (I think I caught something in that filthy water).

So here is what happened to my car…

It was damaged by the hail… The engine was flooded by the little puddle… and the taillight and bumper was smashed (I suppose another car hit it… I don’t really know what happened… I just left the car there in the middle of the road until morning. There wasn’t too much I could do in the middle of a hail storm.)

After I tally what’s all screwed up, I called my insurance company to make a claim. I tell them my story about all how all of this horrible stuff happened to me all in one night. The adjuster said I am sorry to hear that, but I have a story for you… this did not all happened in one night… what we’ve got ourselves here is 3 separate claims… also meaning 3 separate deductibles.

Apparently… the hail damage happened as I was driving… one claim

The flooded engine happened as a result of me driving through the little puddle… another claim

And the damaged rear end happened as a result of an apparent collision…. a third claim

She told me that the first two are covered under my comprehensive coverage, but because the damage was for two different reasons, it is considered 2 different incidents… therefore two different deductibles.

The third is covered under my collision coverage… another incident

I thought that was about the biggest cop out I had ever heard… it all happened at nearly the same time due to the rain.

But nope, I had to come out of pocket with three $500 deductibles.

I am not bashing auto insurance, it is a must have… and it’s the law…

But the moral of this story is please read the fine print. Oh yeah, I guess you can also take a few other things from this little rant … driving in a hail storm is bad, cars are not boats, and leaving a car in the middle of the road ain’t the best idea.

This post was selected to be a part of  Almost Frugal’s Carnival of Money Stories #69.