Talk to me about rodent damage in a car & how you best handled it with an insurance claim.
We have had some intermittent electrical issues and finally decided to splurge and replace a module. They removed the dash and found a mouse nest. My guy says they really won’t know the damage until they see it.
I am wondering the best flow with the insurance company.
I would contact your insurance carrier asap. They may want to inspect the damage prior to any work being done.
Just remember any claim is likely to make your rates go up, so consider that compared to cost of fixing.
I had a chipmunk do $2800 in damage to my wiring harness. It was covered by insurance. Make sure the shop takes many pictures, and as suggested, call your insurance company ASAP.
We just paid for the mouse nest removal out of pocket. Thankfully, we did not involve insurance and the cost was reasonable. The insurance could have junked our truck if they decided the repairs were more than the value of the truck, and we did not want to go down that rabbit hole. So that is something to consider if the car is older.
We had a mouse nest that smoldered on the manifold of my Volvo. Garage was FULL of smoke. I thought the car was going to explode. Called the fire department and went to the neighbors. But (stupidly) I did open the garage door first. I didn’t want the firemen to ax my garage door!
Anyway…car was pushed out by the firemen after determining there was no fire. Volvo came and picked the car up (I had some towing charges but that was fine).
In our case, we paid to have the mouse nest removed, and fortunately there was no damage.
I think I would want excellent pictures taken before, and during any work to prove what happened.
See if you can get a guestimate of the cost before you call your insurance. You might want to just pay OOP.
ACK, that brings back terrible memories. We had rats get into our garage. We had a little refrigerator out there we kept sports drinks and water for the kids to grab to take to soccer. They nested in the back of that. BUT they also ate the complete wiring harness out of one vehicle( not driven much) and did some damage to the other. I don’t think it took long, but the nest looked like it had been there for years.
The only reason we found it is that the car was making some noise so we took it to the shop and carried one of the rats with us. Scared the auto tech!!!
We claimed against homeowner insurance as I recall, not auto. and our rates did not go up.
I have Googled a bit and it seems our company does offer coverage for that. I am a little concerned about them ending up totaling it. The KBB value is quite different than what I see on Cars.com and other sites.
It’s mature, but really cool. 
A claim for rodent damage is from your comprehensive not your collision insurance. I have had a few comprehensive claims (deer hit car, hit side of my garage) and it did not change my insurance rate at all.
Years ago I started my car and as soon as I turned on the climate fan it started making a racket. I ended up pulling a few panels and looking at the fan. A mouse had shredded up some papers and built a nest in the area of the fan. I removed the nest and never saw the mouse or any more evidence. No other damage was done.
FWIW, I’ve found that putting moth balls under the car helps deter rodents.
The car dealership suggested the moth ball thing. And I did it for a while. But frankly, I got tired of the smell of mothballs.
If you don’t like mothballs, a friend of ours suggested Irish Spring bar soap. He cuts in chunks and just leaves in his garage. He started using this after mice chewed the wiring of his VERY expensive car…
Plus one on Irish Spring! That thing will repel any carbon-based life form. I periodically take a bar out of the Costco pack we keep the garage and put chunks of it down gopher holes. No traces of mice in the garage ever since we bought that pack…
Whatever it is that eats my vegetable seedlings is undeterred by Irish Spring. But I do know others who have found it helpful.
It doesn’t work for rabbits or slugs which would be my first guess.
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