CLAIMS: VEHICLE IMPACT

A car crashed into my house: who pays, and what happens when the driver's limit runs out

When a car hits your house, the driver's auto property damage liability owes you for the damage, up to the limit the driver carried, and your homeowners policy pays for the house in any case, less your deductible. That holds whether the driver was insured, underinsured, uninsured, unidentified or a member of your own household. Your insurer can then recover what it paid from the driver, and your deductible can come back through that recovery.

Disclaimer: Published averages and benchmark ranges, not a quote. This page is not insurance advice. Your premium will differ based on your home, location, claims history, and insurer. Flood insurance is separate from a standard homeowners policy.

Pennsylvania lets a driver register a car with as little as $5,000 of liability for "damage to property of another person," according to the state's own insurance law page. The worked crash further down, with invented but ordinary bills for framing, brick, a window, wiring, an engineer's letter, ruined furniture and five weeks in a rental, comes to $53,900. The gap between what the law requires of drivers and what a house costs to fix is why the homeowners policy, not the driver's, ends up paying most vehicle-impact claims, and why the deductible recovery is worth chasing.

Which policy pays, driver by driver

Six kinds of crash appear below, each with the policy that pays first. The homeowners column rests on the ISO Homeowners 3 Special Form, sample HO 00 03 10 00 (copyright 1999, the October 2000 edition), as published by the Insurance Information Institute. Your insurer may file its own wording or state amendments, so confirm each row against the form number printed on your declarations page.

Two patterns run through the rows. Your homeowners policy pays the dwelling in all six, because nothing in the sample's dwelling coverage turns on who drove. What changes from row to row is who you, and later your insurer, can collect from afterward. And the driver's liability limit never reduces what your own policy owes. A driver carrying the state minimum leaves you no worse insured; it leaves less for your insurer to recover, and less for your deductible.

The HO-3 wording on vehicles: one peril, one carve-out

The dwelling and contents are insured on two different bases in the sample, and vehicle damage is treated the same way under both. Coverage A, the dwelling, and Coverage B, other structures such as a detached garage or a fence, are open-peril. The form says: "We insure against risk of direct physical loss to property described in Coverages A and B." It then lists what it does not insure. Section I Exclusions A.1 through A.9 cover ordinance or law, earth movement, water damage, power failure, neglect, war, nuclear hazard, intentional loss and governmental action. The further list in Perils Insured Against A.2.c covers freezing, wear and tear, mechanical breakdown, settling, pests and the like. A vehicle striking the house appears on neither list, so the impact is covered.

Coverage C, personal property, is named-peril: the form insures belongings for "direct physical loss" caused by "any of the following perils." Peril 6 on that list reads, in full, "Vehicles." It carries no qualifier in this edition. A sofa crushed by a bumper, a television knocked off the wall and a bookcase splintered by the impact are all damage caused by vehicles, whoever owned the car.

The carve-out many homeowners have heard about lives somewhere else. Additional Coverage E.3, Trees, Shrubs And Other Plants, covers "trees, shrubs, plants or lawns" on the residence premises only for a short list of perils, and item e of that list is "Vehicles not owned or operated by a resident of the 'residence premises'." That clause, not the Coverage C peril, is the one that turns on residence. It reaches landscaping only. E.3 also caps the payment: "We will pay up to 5% of the limit of liability that applies to the dwelling for all trees, shrubs, plants or lawns. No more than $500 of this limit will be paid for any one tree, shrub or plant." On a $300,000 dwelling limit, that is up to $15,000 for all landscaping, but no hedge plant, ornamental tree or rose bed is worth more than $500 to the claim.

Three other clauses fill in the picture.

• The car itself. Coverage C lists "Motor vehicles" under Property Not Covered, along with their accessories, equipment and parts while in or upon the vehicle. A car parked in your garage and crushed when another car comes through the door is a claim for that car's collision or comprehensive coverage, or for the other driver's liability.
• Collapse. The open-peril grant excludes loss "involving collapse, except as provided in E.8. Collapse." Additional Coverage E.8 pays for an abrupt falling down or caving in of a building or part of one caused by any of "the Perils Insured Against named under Coverage C," and Vehicles is one of them. A garage roof that drops when the car takes out its support post fits.
• Intentional loss. Exclusion A.8 removes "any loss arising out of any act an 'insured' commits or conspires to commit with the intent to cause a loss," and says that in that event "no 'insured' is entitled to coverage, even 'insureds' who did not commit or conspire to commit the act." A deliberate crash by a household member is the one version of this claim the sample takes away from the whole household.

Cracked foundation walls after an impact can draw a reference to exclusion c.(6)(f), which removes "settling, shrinking, bulging or expansion, including resultant cracking" of foundations, walls and floors. That clause describes slow movement of the building. A crack opened in a single moment by a two-ton car is impact damage, and a photo of the car against the wall with the crack beside it is the best answer if the clause comes up. Our guide to settling, cracking and collapse coverage covers how adjusters tell the two apart.

State minimum property damage limits: what a driver may legally carry

The driver's property damage liability limit decides how much can be recovered from that side, so it is worth knowing the floor. The table lists the minimum required in nine states, taken from each state's own motor vehicle or insurance agency page. Each figure is a per-accident amount for damage to other people's property, and one limit covers everything the driver damaged in the crash: your house, a neighbor's fence, a parked car. Drivers may carry more, and many do. These are the legal floors, not typical limits, and states not shown were left out because their official page could not be read on October 31, 2026.

The spread is tenfold, from Pennsylvania's $5,000 to North Carolina's $50,000, and the two states with recent increases show the floor moving. Virginia raised its property damage minimum from $20,000 to $25,000 for policies effective on or after January 1, 2025, and North Carolina doubled its figure from $25,000 to $50,000 for policies issued or renewed after July 1, 2025. A driver in either state who has not renewed since the change may still carry the older limit, so the date on the driver's policy matters as much as the state.

Florida needs a note of its own. Its registration rule pairs $10,000 of property damage liability with $10,000 of personal injury protection, which the state describes as covering 80 percent of necessary medical expenses up to $10,000 "no matter who caused the crash." That no-fault feature is about injuries. Damage to your house still runs through the driver's property damage liability, which the state page says "pays for damage to another person's property caused by you." Texas makes a point any homeowner should hear: its insurance department warns that "the minimum liability limits might be too low if you cause a multi-vehicle accident." A house is a single large claim against the same small pot.

Our sister site ClearCarRates explains how these limits are written and what the three numbers mean in its guide to state minimum liability limits, and the driver-side view of uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.

A $53,900 crash worked three ways

The point of the bills below is to watch the two policies interact; they are illustrations, not averages, estimates or a real file. The homeowner carries an HO-3 written like the sample with a $300,000 dwelling limit (the figure behind every example on this site), insured to at least 80 percent of replacement cost, and a $1,000 all-peril deductible. A driver who does not live in the home loses control, crosses the lawn, clips a neighbor's fence and goes through the front wall.

The sum: $41,000 + $3,000 + $3,500 + $5,500 + $900 = $53,900, and $53,900 less $1,000 is $52,900. The neighbor's fence, assumed at $2,000, is not the homeowner's loss; the driver's carrier pays it from the same per-accident limit, and in this example it is settled first. That leaves the driver's limit minus $2,000 available for the house.

Now hold the crash constant and change the state. The table uses three minimums from the state table: Pennsylvania's $5,000, Texas's $25,000 and North Carolina's $50,000 for a policy renewed after July 1, 2025. Route A is a claim made only against the driver's carrier. Route B is a claim on the homeowner's own policy, with the insurer pursuing the driver afterward. For Route B, two common ways of splitting the recovery are shown, because the sample form does not say which applies.

How the rows are built. Route A: $53,900 minus the recovery, so $53,900 − $3,000 = $50,900, $53,900 − $23,000 = $30,900 and $53,900 − $48,000 = $5,900. That shortfall stays with the homeowner unless the driver can be made to pay personally. Route B, pro rata: the homeowner's $1,000 is 1,000 / 53,900 of the loss, so the homeowner gets that share of the recovery. $3,000 × 1,000 / 53,900 = $55.66, rounded to $56. $23,000 × 1,000 / 53,900 = $426.72, rounded to $427. $48,000 × 1,000 / 53,900 = $890.54, rounded to $891. The final cost is $1,000 less each figure. Deductible repaid first: every recovery is at least $1,000, so the homeowner is made whole and the insurer keeps the rest; its net cost is $52,900 minus (recovery minus $1,000), which equals the Route A shortfall in each column.

The table shows something counterintuitive. Under Route B, the driver's limit barely touches the homeowner. Whether the driver carried $5,000 or $50,000, the homeowner's own policy paid $52,900 within weeks, and the most the homeowner could end up carrying is the $1,000 deductible. The driver's limit decides how much of the bill the homeowners insurer absorbs: $50,900 behind a Pennsylvania minimum, $5,900 behind a North Carolina one. Under Route A, the same limit decides everything, and a Texas homeowner who waited on the driver's carrier would be $30,900 short with a lawsuit as the only remedy.

Timing still matters under Route B. The building lines total $44,000, far above both thresholds in Loss Settlement C.2.d, which lets the insurer pay "no more than the actual cash value of the damage until actual repair or replacement is complete" unless the cost is both under 5 percent of the dwelling limit and under $2,500. On a newer wall the depreciation held back is small; on an older one it can be large, and it is paid once the work is done. Our recoverable depreciation guide explains how to claim it back. On a mortgaged home the dwelling check usually names the lender too; see our guide to a claim check made out to the mortgage company.

Getting the deductible back: subrogation and the recovery split

The sample's Sections I and II Condition F, Subrogation, is short: "An 'insured' may waive in writing before a loss all rights of recovery against any person. If not waived, we may require an assignment of rights of recovery for a loss to the extent that payment is made by us. If an assignment is sought, an 'insured' must sign and deliver all related papers and cooperate with us." Three consequences follow for a vehicle claim.

First, your insurer's right covers only what it paid. Your deductible, and anything the policy did not pay, remain your own claim against the driver. Insurers often pursue the whole loss in one demand and account to you for your share, but the form does not promise that, so ask.

Second, you must cooperate and must not undercut the recovery. Signing a release for the driver's carrier in exchange for a quick check for "the house" can extinguish rights your insurer was counting on. Before accepting any payment from the driver's side, tell your own adjuster and get the release language reviewed. The waiver sentence in the condition refers to waivers made in writing before a loss, such as in a lease or a contract; it is not permission to settle with the driver afterward without telling your insurer.

Third, the split. The sample says nothing about how a partial recovery is divided between insurer and insured. Some insurers repay the insured's deductible first; others share pro rata, as the worked table shows; and state rules on the point differ. Ask your adjuster in writing which method applies to your claim, and ask for a written accounting of what was recovered. If your state has a rule, your state insurance department's consumer line can say which. Recovery takes time: the driver's carrier investigates liability and may dispute fault, and nothing comes back until it pays.

The deductible recovery is also the part of the claim most affected by the driver's details. A police report naming the driver, the vehicle, the plate and the auto insurer is what makes subrogation possible. A hit-and-run with no identification leaves your insurer nobody to pursue, and the deductible is simply your cost.

When the driver lives with you

The household row is the one that surprises people, in both directions. The sample does not exclude damage to the dwelling caused by a vehicle a resident owns or drives. A teenager who mistakes the accelerator for the brake and drives through the garage wall has caused a direct physical loss to Coverage A or B property, and the open-peril grant pays it less the deductible. Belongings damaged in the same moment fall under the Coverage C Vehicles peril, which has no resident qualifier in this edition.

Three things are lost. The landscaping falls out because of E.3's "not owned or operated by a resident" wording: a crushed hedge, a flattened rose bed or a sapling are the homeowner's cost. The family car is not covered under the homeowners policy at all; it goes to that car's collision coverage. And the deductible usually stays with the household, because there is no outside driver to recover it from.

The household driver's own auto policy is worth reading, but not as a source of payment for the house. The liability part of an auto policy is written to pay for damage the driver causes to other people's property, and auto forms commonly exclude property the driver owns, rents or is transporting. Read the property damage exclusions in Part A of your own auto policy before counting on it. The homeowners policy also will not cover the driver's liability to anyone else. Section II Exclusion A removes Coverages E and F for "motor vehicle liability" involving a vehicle registered for use on public roads, so a family car that rolls on into the neighbor's porch is an auto liability claim, not a homeowners one. The small Damage To Property Of Others coverage, up to $1,000 per occurrence, excludes the same thing: property damage arising out of "the ownership, maintenance, occupancy, operation, use" of motor vehicles.

Before filing a household crash, weigh it the way you would any modest homeowners claim. A dented garage door that costs $1,400 to replace nets $400 on a $1,000 deductible and puts a loss on your record. Our guide on whether to file a homeowners claim sets out a break-even method, and our CLUE report guide explains what a reported loss record holds and how long it stays.

Structure, shoring and living elsewhere while the wall is open

A car through a wall is rarely a cosmetic loss. Bearing walls, porch posts, garage headers and the brick veneer that ties into them can all be compromised, and some local building departments require an engineer's letter before anyone re-occupies the room. The sample has a clause for each stage.

The first night is about protecting the house. Section I Condition B.4 makes it a duty to "protect the property from further damage" and to keep "an accurate record of repair expenses," and Additional Coverage E.2 pays "the reasonable cost incurred by you for the necessary measures taken solely to protect covered property that is damaged by a Peril Insured Against from further damage." Emergency shoring, plywood over the opening and a tarp all fit. Keep the invoices and photos of the opening before it is covered. Debris removal is paid under Additional Coverage E.1 for "debris of covered property," which means the broken brick and drywall. Towing the car is a matter for the car's owner and insurer, because the car is not covered property.

The weeks of repair are about where the household sleeps. If the impact makes the part of the home where you live "not fit to live in," Coverage D pays "any necessary increase in living expenses incurred by you so that your household can maintain its normal standard of living," for the shortest time required to repair. Only the increase counts: a rental is an added cost while your mortgage payment continues, but groceries you would have bought anyway are not. Our additional living expenses guide lists the receipts to keep.

The rebuild is about code. A wall rebuilt today may have to meet framing, egress or energy rules the original wall predated. The sample's Ordinance or Law additional coverage lets you use up to 10 percent of the Coverage A limit for those increased costs; on a $300,000 dwelling limit that is up to $30,000. Our ordinance or law guide shows how to find your own percentage, which some insurers print higher or lower.

One clause can cut the payment when the house was insured too low. Loss Settlement C.2.a pays full replacement cost only if the dwelling limit is at least 80 percent of the full replacement cost before the loss. Below that, C.2.b pays the greater of actual cash value or a proportion of the repair cost. A home insured for $240,000 that would cost $400,000 to rebuild is at 60 percent, and a $41,000 wall repair would be paid at 60 / 80 of its cost after the deductible comes off first, as C.2.b(2) directs: $41,000 minus $1,000, times 60 / 80, is $30,000, unless actual cash value is higher. Our guide to lowering a premium without underinsuring covers how that ratio is checked.

Photos, police report and estimates: one file serving two insurers

A vehicle-impact loss creates two claims from the same facts: yours on your homeowners policy, and the one against the driver. The evidence collected in the first hours serves both, and some of it disappears once the car is towed.

The sample's duties after loss give the order: prompt notice to your insurer, protection of the property, an inventory of damaged belongings, and a signed, sworn proof of loss "within 60 days after our request." Our walk-through of opening a homeowners claim covers the first call, and our home inventory guide gives a format adjusters can work from. The sample's Suit Against Us condition requires any lawsuit against your own insurer to start "within two years after the date of loss"; deadlines for suing the driver are set by state law and differ, and our claim deadlines by state page lists the insurer-side rules we have checked.

Claiming against the driver's insurer directly

Route A is not always the wrong door. It suits a loss that is small, plainly the driver's fault and well inside the driver's limit, such as a car that knocked down a mailbox, a section of fence and a porch railing for $3,000. Claiming directly avoids your deductible and keeps the loss off your own homeowners record, though the driver's carrier may take weeks to accept liability, may pay actual cash value and has no duty to you beyond the driver's liability.

The deciding test is the size of the loss against the driver's limit. When the repair estimate is well under the limit, and the facts leave no doubt about fault, a direct claim is reasonable, and you can still turn to your own policy if it stalls. When the estimate approaches or passes the limit, or other property in the same crash is drawing on the same limit, open your own claim. Your policy pays whether the driver was a $5,000 Pennsylvania minimum or a $50,000 North Carolina one. A fight over the size of the repair bill, with coverage agreed, is what the sample's Appraisal condition is for (see the appraisal clause walk-through); a refusal to pay at all is challenged differently, as our claim denial appeal guide sets out.

Subrogation can take months, so the deductible is money you front until the driver's insurer pays it back, if it does. That makes the all-peril deductible the first figure to weigh before any crash happens, followed by a dwelling limit that may have fallen behind today's rebuilding cost and an ordinance or law percentage that has to fund code upgrades once a wall is opened. Those three figures belong side by side whenever a renewal offer arrives; the state cost table adds a published-average benchmark on a $300,000 dwelling basis, which is never a quote. A tree through the roof raises many of the same questions as a car through the wall, and our guide to a tree falling on the house works through that version; for storm, water and fire claims, start from the claims hub.

After the crash: the questions owners ask most