If something like this is well-documented, dealing with insurance shouldn’t be all that traumatic.
Gosh, and I was annoyed because the washer I used in my apartment building didn’t spin my clothes semi-dry, and the other one plain old doesn’t work, so I had to get out my two-wheeler and take a load of sopping wet clothes to the next building.
It is stupid easy to torch a car with a road flare. Light it and set it at the base of the center of the windshield in the slot the windshield wipers hide in. Or set it on top of either front tire. No doors needed.
That flare will burn stupid hot for 15 minutes. More than enough time to get some nearby plastic or rubber burning and then the car is toast.
As shown by the OP, this wasn’t a comprehensive burn leaving a rusted metal shell. A lot of the vehicle is still physically intact. But … good bet its a constructive total loss from the insurance POV. And that accomplished the vandal’s goal.
I certainly haven’t tried it, but if someone took a burning road flare and set if down directly under the engine, wouldn’t that cause a conflagration like this?
By the time the FD opens the bay doors that car is totaled. Insurance companies typically total burned cars.
IMHO, your car was targeted. Although there may be some more before the video starts, it appears that he lights the flair at the car to the right, walks around the other side of your car, puts it under your car for a second & then it appears to me that he’s trying to put out the flare as he’s walking away. Notice the flame get smaller for a second, kind of like some people will snuff out a candle by licking/wetting their fingers & then squeezing the flame suffocating it out. Further, it looks like he’s then trying to swing his arm to put it out that way before he walks out of camera view.
Now whether he was targeting your car, a Subie in general, or just that’s the random car he set his sights on is the $64,000 question. I would absolutely suggest you take at least the easiest (read: free) security precautions (lock your doors, have your keys out when you go out/get home, etc.) for the time being. If it were me, I’d also do the next level, which costs some money - doorbell cams, trim/remove large shrubs up against the house, etc.
I understand why you’d think that, and in a vacuum, I would’ve agreed with you. Our initial suspicion was electrical fault, not arson. Nobody suspected foul play at first — the fire dept didn’t even have law enforcement with them when they came out, and we didn’t ask for any.
However, as others pointed out, ample evidence would soon emerge.
After the fire was put out, we reviewed the video surveillance (see OP) and noticed the person with the flaming object. It caught me by surprise too. I wasn’t fishing for any sort of suspect, just a start time and some pictures for insurance, and had to double-check the frames a few times to make sure I wasn’t imagining something. I initially thought I was looking at a reflective dog leash; I had to go through it frame by frame to see an ignition, and later, hot, dripping stuff (in hindsight, probably slag from the flare) right before he walked off-frame. The lighting change reflected on the tree leaves a couple minutes later further confirms it.
An officer came out and reviewed the footage and I provided them with copies. It was nearly 5 am by this point, hours after the fire, and we went to bed exhausted.
The next morning, the fire department’s arson investigator came out and further confirmed:
As far as I can tell, there is no longer any question (in the eyes of the investigators) whether this was arson. They canvassed the neighbors and recovered more footage. I am not sure what happens next, or whether any investigation is still ongoing. No suspects that I know of.
On Nextdoor, we learned there was a vehicular break-in that same night on our same street, and we’re not sure if they’re related somehow — trying to get confirmation about whether the flare was possibly taken out of that other vehicle.
Anyway, I hope all of this will be enough for insurance to process our claim. Seems pretty open-and-shut to me, but ya never know…
I am also not really sure what happens if the damage is the result of vandalism rather than equipment failure — is there a pedestrian equivalent of a hit-and-run? A light-and-flight?
The car was chosen, for whatever reason — there were many cars near it, including one parked directly behind it (which was thankfully unaffected). The question is whether we were targeted, or if they just thought our car was particularly burn-worthy for whatever reason.
I’m sorry if this wasn’t clear in my OP, but our car (the one that got lit on fire) is not directly in the footage. It is off-screen, just out of frame behind the white car in the upper left at 00:53:35.
Here is the original surveillance footage from the camera:
Part 1:
Part 2:
The sequence of events:
00:53:26)00:53:27. The interruption is because my cheap camera only records short clips triggered by motion and such, not contiguous footage)Sorry again about the split-up footage and my poor splicing. It was a cheap $30 camera and we’re glad it recorded anything at all. We didn’t have one pointed directly at the streetside parking where our burned car was. (We’ll get more…)
Yeah, exactly. Our guess is that maybe he just saw the old car as the most burnable. There aere nicer cars, older cars, bigger cars, smaller cars, other Subies, all up and down the same street (it’s a very busy street). No idea why he chose ours in particular. Maybe he didn’t; maybe it was just the most toss-able target in range after he lit the flare. I guess we’ll never know unless he gets caught or comes forward…
Although I suppose it’s an interesting question why he’d light the flare and then walk across the street, slowly, and then toss it another car. Why didn’t he just light it directly next to the car?
Did he mean to appear on camera? Was it a message directed at us? Did he just like the thrill of being on camera? All good questions…
Yeah, we’ll add a few more cameras. Beyond that, I don’t know that there is really much more we can do to safeguard against midnight arson… if he really wanted to burn a house, he could’ve tossed the flare directly at the house or into the shrubbery or such.
Petty vandalism and pyromania is one thing. I can only hope this person likes fire, not murder. To me his casual gait and arm swinging suggested something other than targeted hatred… maybe he was high or drunk, or just anticipating what was to come, but it didn’t strike me as someone who was specifically targeting us. Neither of us believe he would have reason to target us… we’re really pretty low-key, boring people. Or so I hope…
If detectives can determine who did this, that person will be arrested and almost certainly charged with a felony.
While it can be expected to take a while before such a case is resolved, you would be considered a victim, and may be awarded restitution (meaning you are to be paid by the victim for financial losses that your insurance didn’t cover),
I’m not an insurance expert, but a great many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away in another town, a vandal smashed the headlight assembly of my nearly-new car. Insurance covered it, the only issue being whether it should come under collision coverage (if it was hit by another vehicle) or comprehensive coverage (if the damage was caused by anything other than a vehicle collision). This was important because the deductibles were different. The adjuster agreed that the evidence showed it to be indeed vandalism, which was great, because back then, my deductible for comprehensive was just $25!
First, I want to share my sympathy for the experience, and I must say you’re taking it faaaaaaar more rationally than many in the situation, so kudos to you.
Responding to this as a former (please note the disclaimer) insurance adjuster, and experiences vary widely by carrier and adjuster: I think your video evidence and the police follow ups put you in a good state.
Without either/both, you’d likely have more trouble, because since you’ve been honest with us, and presumably would be with the carrier, they might well have tried to deny the claim if they could construe it as
Which are NOT generally considered a coverable lost on most policies. Damage to a car from “faulty maintenance” can be cause (again, depending on carrier and the adjuster) for a claim denial. Instead, you have (IMO) ample evidence that this was an act of vandalism, and have this as a COMP claim.
And COMP claims show up differently when pulling reports on renewals, or if you consider switching to another carrier, and very rarely are associated with additional costs on the individual scale (of course, if you’re in an area with COMP claim -clusters- like hail damage or flooding, the whole area will be rated as such, but that’s not on the basis of any individual claim).
If the police have identified a likely suspect, you -may- even get the (very likely) total loss settlement with your Deductible waived - because they’ll have a clear target to subrogate against. Could go either way. Do keep in mind that based on the placement and images of the damage, I’d have considered it an almost certain Total, and it would be one that I’d not consider a good choice for trying to find someone to repair on the cheap as a salvage title. That damage to the engine compartment is expensive and given the amount of wiring/computers in modern vehicles is going to take a metric ton of expensive labor hours even if you get used parts.
Anyway, if you carrier is slightly more tight fisted, they may require a copy of the police report confirming the incident and that they’ve confirmed the cause as vandalism, and delay a payout, but that’s normally not an issue for any major insurer - the ones that are most likely to fight over any single issue are the budget/fly-by-night carriers who offer rates that are almost too good to be true, because they contest almost any claim, and the people using them are too desperate or broke to fight back.
Which is why I’m on the record in several threads advising (not that my P&C license is valid any longer) to talk to your agent about dropping COMP deductibles. It’s normally cheaper than COLL by a large factor, and it’s the one more likely to cause you to grind your teeth than a collision accident where you normally feel you had more control!