2023 was the record year for cars arriving at body shops due to damage related to hailstorms. The trend has been constantly growing in the last decade and continues into 2024. This was noted by Federcarrozzieri, the association of Italian body shops, which highlights how requests for interventions and repairs from motorists have changed significantly in recent years.
In the last 10 years in Italy, Federcarrozzieri estimates, requests for intervention for damage to cars caused by extreme weather events have grown by 50%: at the top of the regions with the highest number of repairs related to these problems we find Veneto, followed by Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna, which together represent almost 70% of the total requests for “weather damage” received by Italian body shops.
Official data recorded 1,468 intense hailstorms on Italian territory last year, with 596 cases of “very large” hail and 67 episodes of “giant” hailstones. The consequences on cars on the road are inevitable: dents, blisters from hail, shattered windows, up to actual holes in the bodywork.
The costs of damage are not insignificant for motorists: the cost of repairing cars hit by hail varies from a minimum of 900 euros for small interventions and can reach up to 10 thousand euros for large cars that have suffered significant damage to the bodywork. . Not all cars are covered by a specific insurance policy which, even if present, often includes substantial deductibles and overdrafts.
Similar damage is caused by branches, plants or trees which increasingly fall on parked cars in the event of strong winds and storms, and which cause – if we exclude head-on collisions with large tree trunks in the road – dents on the bodywork and broken windscreen, rear windows, door glass, panoramic roofs.
“The new frontier of the impacts of climate change on the car sector, however, is represented by Saharan dust which increasingly falls and settles on cars in case of rain”, explains president Davide Galli.
“If not removed correctly – he continues – the dust can lead to scratches on paint, glass, windscreen wipers and handles, which require specialized polishing interventions which, depending on the type of vehicle and colour, cost on average between 300 and 500 euros. Interventions are often not covered by insurance policy, and therefore entirely the responsibility of the owners”.