Collision vs comprehensive

Ultimately I know I need to talk to my insurance company to get an answer, but they’re closed and their automated claims tool in their app railroaded me to a collision claim without me being able to provide any real details, so I abandoned that path.

I live in the US and have both collision and comprehensive coverage. The collision coverage has a deductible, and it’s not worth paying that much out of pocket to fix the cosmetic damage to my car, especially considering the additional premium increase. My comprehensive coverage has no deductible, and a claim would cause a smaller increase in my premium. I’m not sure what my claim would fall under, because while I was driving, I didn’t collide with another vehicle or stationary object.

So here’s what happened. I was getting onto the highway when a plywood board flew at my car from the truck in front of me. I think they kicked it up off the road, but it happened so fast it may have flown out of their bed. The board hit the hood of my car, causing damage to the hood and front drivers side quarter panel.

I’ve read elsewhere that comprehensive coverage usually pays for damage caused by flying debris on the freeway, but wanted to get the opinions of members of this group mainly to try and assuage my anxiety about this, especially since I have a previous claim from a similar incident close to 10 years ago where I hit a stationary object that had fallen off someone’s vehicle on the freeway that I failed to avoid, and ended up with a collision claim.

I also wonder if telling your insurance company about an incident and then deciding not to file a claim can affect your premium.

Thanks for any help you can offer.