If you're wondering, “does car insurance cover flood damage?”, unless you have comprehensive insurance coverage, insurance companies will not pay you for flood damage.
Floods and hurricanes are natural disasters that impact our lives in a lot of different ways. It's been noticed that over the last couple of years, the northeast coastal areas are impacted by floods more than other regions around the country.
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Among the different stressful impacts of floods are life, the automobile became one of the trending concerns between car owners. According to consumerreports.org, many people who got their vehicles swarmed by hurricanes like hurricane Ida are facing two different stressful elements, including what other vehicles are completely totaled and what they will be compensated for the flooded vehicles.
This article walks through all that you need to know about whether insurance companies cover flood damage or not and at what point your car will be considered as totaled if it got impacted by cold water damage.
What is flood damage?
Before we provide you with any details about “does car insurance cover flood damage?” You must familiarize yourself with the definition of flood damage to evaluate whether your car is labeled with a flood damage title or not.
Depending on the severity of the flood, there are some scenarios where your insurance company decides not to fix your car and label it with “flood damaged title.” Insurance companies typically will go through the process of comparing your vehicles' value to the expected repair costs. When repair costs exceed 70 to 75% of your vehicle's value, they do not repair the cars.
While not every car's water damage will lead your car to be labeled with a flood damage title, in most scenarios, if you're in areas impacted by a hurricane Ida, you will most likely end up with a flood-damaged title.
The severity of flood damage depends on how deep the water was and what components in your car got soaked in water, and for how long. Obviously, suppose a car was in a hurricane area. In that case, there's a very high chance that the vehicle was completely soaked underwater for extended times because the most focus is on rescuing humans and getting them out of the hurricane areas rather than taking care of the automobile.
Does car insurance cover flood damage?
If you were living in an area that got impacted by a hurricane, one of the most important questions you might ask yourself as “does car insurance cover flood damage?” Unfortunately, insurance companies will not cover your flood damage unless you're covered with a comprehensive coverage,.
If you're not already aware of the compressive coverage, it is the type of car that takes care of your vehicle in cases of things other than collision, including fire, floodwater, theft, etc. Hurricanes and floods are very common situations where comprehensive coverage would be useful.
Keep in mind that if your car got involved in a car accident during the flood, you might still be covered by your insurance company because this is still considered a collision due to hydroplaning. Therefore, you must reach out to your insurance company and explain to them in detail what happened to your vehicle and how it got damaged by a flood. You never know what type of information you'll get, which might be beneficial.
Since comprehensive coverage is not mandatory, most people got their vehicles impacted by hurricanes end up with selling their cars instead of wasting their time waiting for the insurance company to pay them anything. As a result, there is a very high trend of several people searching to sell their flood-damaged vehicles in areas around Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Mid-Atlantic states in Sylvania, New Jersey, New York, New England, and others, which were heavily impacted by hurricane Ida.
Does my home insurance cover car flood damage?
Unfortunately, your home insurance coverage does not care for any car water damages that impacted your vehicle. In addition, most homeowner’s insurance specifies that they do not include any coverage taking care of vehicles or other objects that got damaged at your home.
Will my insurance company raise my rates after a comprehensive claim?
Although many insurance companies are not expected to raise your rates after a comprehensive claim, you want to be mindful about when to make a claim. In other words, if the flood damage had not made her and impacted minor components in your car, you must compare repair costs to the deductibles before reaching out to your insurance company.
Sometimes deductibles might be much higher than repair costs, which means that all you got is reporting to your insurance company about a certain comprehensive claim without getting any benefits. Therefore, automotive experts recommend that you reach out to your mechanic and have him perform a detailed inspection to determine whether you can fix your car out of pocket without needing to pay any deductible or informing your insurance company.
However, if you were in areas like those impacted by hurricane Ida, you will most likely end up making a comprehensive plan no matter what. You might want to negotiate the situation with your insurance company and have a conversation about not raising your rates in the future because these instances do not frequently happen unless you live in an area continuously impacted by hurricane support than other areas.
What should I do if my car is flooded?
Depending on where you're located and how severe the flood is, you might have some actions to do to eliminate and reduce the severity of the flood damage on your car. According to the National Auto Dealers Association NADA, follow these steps when your car gets flooded:
1. Never start the vehicle
One of the very common mistakes that many inexperienced car drivers make is to start their cars after a flood. However, the faster you start your car, the higher the potential for internal electric damages. So instead, you should let a professional perform a detailed, thorough inspection of your car and give you the green light to start the car.
2. Dry the vehicle
Once you're safe and in a situation where you can perform some tips to drive your car, go ahead and do so. First, try your best to take water out of the car with all possible methods. For example, you might want to use a wet-dry vacuum that helps you sucks water out of the different internal components of your car. In some situations, you might want to rely on a dry cloth to help absorb any soaked sheets or elements within your car's interior.
3. Reach out to your insurance company
Once you did whatever you can to try out the car, the next step is to contact your insurance company and describe the situation. Some experts might have a different opinion about claiming flood damage. Therefore, it is recommended that you review your insurance coverage and check if you have comprehensive insurance or not.
If you don't have comprehensive insurance coverage, then you want to reach out to your mechanic and have him perform an inspection preserving whether repair costs are closed deductibles or not. If that's the case, you might want to fix your car out of pocket rather than dealing with a headache with the insurance company.
4. Bring in a mechanic
While waiting for the insurance company and the paperwork, experts recommend that you reach out to your mechanic whole performs a quick inspection to determine and evaluate the severity of the plot. Your mechanic will take a closer look at the transmission, axles, brakes, engine, fuel system, etc.
5. Flush out fluids
Depending on the severity of the flood, you might end up with a point where you must flush out all fluids. Most fluids are not made of water, which means that when a flood reaches out to the fluid reservoirs, it impacts their characteristics and prevents them from doing their jobs. Therefore, have your mechanic look at all fluids in your vehicle and flush them out if needed.
6. Perform a brake and bearing cleaning
Most automotive experts recommend that you have your mechanic perform a detailed cleaning of the brakes and the bearings to prevent corrosion and rust from building up on those significant components. Your mechanic will also let you know whether these components are still in good condition or not.
7. Inspect the wiring
Finally, after your mechanic looks at the major components, the next step is to look at the wire connections and the electric components. If you're driving a modern vehicle, these electric components might be very sensitive and are expected to get damaged immediately after any small amounts of water seeping through.
Is it worth fixing a flood-damaged car?
When your car gets impacted by the flood, as important that you evaluate whether it's worth fixing in the first place or not, while most insurance companies will immediately refuse to fix the car if repair costs are high, it is still your responsibility to evaluate the situation.
As a rule of thumb, with repair costs approach 70 to 75% of your vehicle's value, it is not worth the repairs whether the damages are because of a flood or because of any other issue. Therefore, if your car was involved in areas like those impacted by hurricane Ida, you'll most likely end up selling your car instead of wasting your time getting into work.
While that is true, there are many instances where certain skilled car owners decide to fix their flood-damaged vehicles and work through the paperwork to convert the flood damage title to a salvage title so they can sell the car and make some money out of it.
Remember that even after converting the title into a salvage title, it is still an indication that the vehicle was involved in a critical situation that damaged it completely. Therefore, no matter how hard you try, flood-damaged vehicles will always end up with a value much lower than the used car market.
Therefore, if you think about the pros and cons of fixing a flood-damaged vehicle, you will most likely decide to sell the vehicle if it has major damages and fix it if the damages are minor.
Who buys flood-damaged cars?
The next question you'll ask yourself when dealing with flood-damaged vehicles is, “who buys flood-damaged cars?” The short answer is your options are going to be very limited. This is because most private buyers are interested in purchasing a vehicle that doesn't have major problems.
Also, dealerships typically do not pay the top dollars for any used vehicle, and imagine how much they'll pay for a flood-damaged car?
Thus, your best option would be to sell your car to a car removal company like Cash Cars Buyer. Cash Cars Buyer grantees to buy your vehicle no matter what's its type or condition. By reaching out to Cash Cars Buyer, you guarantee to have your vehicle removed within one to three days only!
Conclusion
Water damage would be one of the critical enemies of any vehicle, especially if your car got soaked in water for extended times in areas impacted by hurricanes like hurricane Ida recently. If you're lucky enough and have comprehensive insurance coverage, your insurance company will cover damages. However, if you don't have that type of insurance, you have to pay repair costs out of pocket.
If your vehicle got impacted by car water damage, it's not the end of the world because you still have some chances, although they're limited. The good news is that Cash Cars Buyer guarantees while you're flooded damaged car and remove it within one to three days only!
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