Lightning strike on house during charging

[Sunburned]

I was advised by the electrician who ran the circuit for my charger to get a whole home surge suppressor installed for exactly this scenario. The suppressor should blow before the car is hit.

Same, it was a few hundred extra to avoid this exact scenario. We've had a lot of storms this year, so I feel great about spending the money.

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[GreaseMonkey]

ChatGPT is unambiguous about this:


If lightning strikes your home and damages a car parked in the garage, the claim typically goes through your auto insurance, not your homeowners insurance — specifically, your car’s comprehensive coverage.

Here’s how it breaks down:

? Auto Insurance

• Comprehensive coverage pays for damage to your vehicle from non-collision events like:
  • Lightning strikes
  • Fire
  • Theft
  • Falling objects
• This applies even if the vehicle is parked in your garage.

? Homeowners Insurance

• Covers the structure of your home and personal belongings inside the home.
• It will cover damage to:
  • The garage itself
  • Personal property inside the garage (tools, appliances, etc.)
  • But not vehicles, which are excluded from homeowners policies (except possibly very small recreational ones like scooters or lawn tractors).

Action Steps:

1. File a claim with your auto insurer (if you have comprehensive coverage).
2. Also file a homeowners claim if the garage or other property was damaged.
3. Take photos of all damage and document the time of the lightning strike if possible.

Let me know if you want help drafting the claim or talking to your insurer.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Had the car not been plugged into the house electrical system it would have not been grounded to the house system, which provided the path for the lightening to reach the car and damage it.

The surge could have also been on a line conductor rather than ground. We won't know.

I should also mention that if there's a thunderstorm you can just stop your charge via FordPass, even if you can't unplug the car. Stopping the charge will open up the contactor in the EVSE and isolate the charging electronics from high voltage surges. The ground is still connected, but it's a lot harder to damage the car with a ground surge compared to a surge on the line conductors during charging.

If I'm at work, I just hit stop on the charge rather than walking all the way out to it during a thunderstorm and risk getting rained on or struck by lightning.

 

[sukhoi_584th]

ChatGPT is unambiguous about this:


If lightning strikes your home and damages a car parked in the garage, the claim typically goes through your auto insurance, not your homeowners insurance — specifically, your car’s comprehensive coverage.

Here’s how it breaks down:

? Auto Insurance

• Comprehensive coverage pays for damage to your vehicle from non-collision events like:
  • Lightning strikes
  • Fire
  • Theft
  • Falling objects
• This applies even if the vehicle is parked in your garage.

? Homeowners Insurance

• Covers the structure of your home and personal belongings inside the home.
• It will cover damage to:
  • The garage itself
  • Personal property inside the garage (tools, appliances, etc.)
  • But not vehicles, which are excluded from homeowners policies (except possibly very small recreational ones like scooters or lawn tractors).

Action Steps:

1. File a claim with your auto insurer (if you have comprehensive coverage).
2. Also file a homeowners claim if the garage or other property was damaged.
3. Take photos of all damage and document the time of the lightning strike if possible.

Let me know if you want help drafting the claim or talking to your insurer.

So, it's confident, but we have no idea if it's correct.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

So, it's confident, but we have no idea if it's correct.

Correction: maybe you don’t, but I know it is correct.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

And insurance companies never split hairs...

They will have no hair to split. This is not the first or the last incident of car damage that happened at home. They will have a very clear procedure on how to tackle. You just like to argue, and I’m a little bored ??‍

 

[RickMachE]

lightning....

If vehicle is under warranty, it should be covered.

 

[Mach1E]

Would you mind sharing what the whole house surge protection cost you? Retired here in the "lightning capital" of the U.S., and we're now in "Hurricane Season;" fully six (6) months of the year and getting longer and more turbulent.... (Was it the recent FEMA appointee who hadn't ever heard of a "hurricane season?" And these idiots are going to get FEMA out of the "Emergency" response business?).

If it makes you feel any better, hurricane season really hasn’t gotten longer nor more turbulent despite what the news tries to claim every year.

We do have worse years and better years that are cyclical (el nino for example).

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/#:~:text=This finding is important since,hurricanes that become major hurricanes.
Even with a significant warming in the next 100 years (2 degrees) the increase in frequency is only projected to be 1-10%.

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-tropical-cyclone-activity

What has gotten significantly better is how we measure and predict the storms though. Stay safe this year! After two direct hits and my house flooding from Helene last year I’m hoping for a reprieve!

 

[BudC]

My pre-Mach E Chevy Volt was plugged in when our house was hit by lightning. I was able to limp to the dealer but things were obviously not right.

It took them several months to fix everything - basically they had to replace one thing and move on to the next issue, pretty much everything electrical was zapped.

Needless to say I unplug whenever there's a threat of storms.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Or...

My AI search found this:

That’s why there are different chatbots catering to different points of view. You got yours, I got mine.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Ah, great follow-up — and this is where it gets juicy from an insurance perspective.





If your car was plugged in and charging when lightning struck your home, it introduces a gray area — but unfortunately, it still doesn’t mean homeowners insurance will cover the car itself.





Here’s the deal, broken down clearly (minus sarcasm… for now):














? If the Car Was Plugged In:

• Even if the lightning strike came through the home’s electrical system and fried your car’s battery or electronics while it was charging, the damage is still considered part of the car — and thus should be covered under your auto insurance comprehensive coverage.
• Homeowners insurance may cover:
  • The EV charger or charging station if it was damaged.
  • Electrical wiring in the house leading to the charger.
  • Power surges affecting household items.
• 
  
• But not:
  ? The car’s battery
  ? Onboard electronics
  ? The vehicle itself

Why? Because insurance companies love fine print, and in most homeowners policies, motor vehicles are explicitly excluded, even if plugged in.














? TL;DR:








The fact that your car was plugged in does not shift the claim to homeowners insurance.


It’s still an auto insurance (comprehensive coverage) matter.


Your house insurer only cares about what’s on their side of the plug.





Let me know if you’d like a version of this explained to forum members still out there blaming the utility company.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

By the way, my wife’s wedding ring and kids’ upright piano are also excluded from our State Farm home insurance policy. We carry a personal articles policy to cover those items ??‍.

So moral of the story, according to ChatGPT, your home insurance policy will likely specifically exclude your vehicle.

 

[Mach1E]

Or...

My AI search found this:

Just another example of AI being dumb.

It’s treating your car like it’s a plugged in appliance.

A car isn’t personal property and it’s DEFINITELY NOT “other structures.”

Read your policy. Cars are excluded almost always.

Same if your house burns down or floods. Car not covered by homeowners nor flood.

Your auto policy covers your autos.

 

[McQueen]

If it makes you feel any better, hurricane season really hasn’t gotten longer nor more turbulent despite it what the news tries to claim every year.

We do have worse years and better years that are cyclical (el nino for example).

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/#:~:text=This finding is important since,hurricanes that become major hurricanes.
Even with a significant warming in the next 100 years (2 degrees) the increase in frequency is only projected to be 1-10%.

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-tropical-cyclone-activity

What has gotten significantly better is how we measure and predict the storms though. Stay safe this year! After two direct hits and my house flooding from Helene last year I’m hoping for a reprieve!

I guess you’re living the exception to the “Rule.” Been living in Palm Beach County, Florida for 30+ years; and virtually every other month since then has been “record-breaking” hot, drought conditions burn flora and over-stress a/c systems, rain storms have been getting progressively heavier (when we do get rain); and a couple months ago we has a hail storm that with machine-gun precision perforated every screen in our enclosure and cracked a few brand new concrete roof tiles. Never before saw temps in my garage at 90+ degrees every day now since May….
Links can be informative, certainly; but the life experience has been conclusive for my money.

 

[Mach1E]

I guess you’re living the exception to the “Rule.” Been living in Palm Beach County, Florida for 30+ years; and virtually every other month since then has been “record-breaking” hot, drought conditions burn flora and over-stress a/c systems, rain storms have been getting progressively heavier (when we do get rain); and a couple months ago we has a hail storm that with machine-gun precision perforated every screen in our enclosure and cracked a few brand new concrete roof tiles. Never before saw temps in my garage at 90+ degrees every day now since May….
Links can be informative, certainly; but the life experience has been conclusive for my money.

I’ve found when it comes to 170 years of comprehensive scientific data from trusted sources compared to my own personal experience……. I will stick with the data.

That said, regardless of the “data,” my own personal experience ends up being the only thing that matters.

When a hurricane hits my house directly for the first time since 1857 (which happened last year), it doesn’t matter how rare it is because my house flooded.

I just hope we get another 170 years before the next one!

My only point about the hurricanes frequency and intensity was that there actually is scientific consensus that it really hasn’t changed much in over 100 years and isn’t expected to change much in the next….. even if we get a 2 degree rise in temperatures in that time period.

For me personally, the frequency matters less than WHERE they form. When we get into a weather pattern where the storms form in the Gulf of Mexico……. They hit land no matter where they go.

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