A door ding can happen to anyone, anywhere and it is important to know that it can be covered under your car insurance policy. If you are carrying comprehensive or live in a no-fault state and have no-fault insurance, your policy will cover the ding less your deductible.
Whether or not your insurance rates are raised because you file a claim for the repair of a door ding will depend upon your insurance company. Many companies will not raise your rates for something as simple as a door ding and if you have no-fault insurance, there will be no increase in rates.
If your insurance company raises your rates, you may see a dollar or two increase a month. It does not sound like a lot of money, but it can come out to over 10 dollars a year.
The best time to find out if you will see an increase in your insurance is to check when you do not have a door ding. You may find that your current car insurance will penalize you for a door ding.
Any penalty or raise in rates that you see from your insurance company should give spur you to compare auto insurance quotes from several other companies. This will help you to determine whether you would like to change companies. Be sure to ask them the percentage of rate increase you might see if you have a claim on a door ding when comparing quotes.
Door dings are hard to determine fault in order to put in a claim on an insurance company and you may decide that it is not worth filing a claim over. Some door dings, on the other hand, can be excessive after you figure in the cost to repair the ding and the paint and material needed to blend the door color back to the original paint. Along with those expenses, you need to figure that labor charges for this type of repair can be expensive as well. Some hourly rates in bodyshops are over $100.
Door ding does not sound like a major event, but if you have a crease in the door of a Mercedes-Benz CL class, you can be talking about a lot of money to repair.
Only you can determine if the cost to put a claim into your insurance company is worth it or not, or whether a slight raise in your insurance premium offsets the need to come up with hundreds of dollars in a repair bill.