Does car insurance cover flood damage?

Unfortunately, there’s rarely a year that passes without majoring flooding somewhere around the UK. While the most significant damage is generally done to people’s homes, cars often also fall victim to the water – and many are so badly damaged they have to be written off by insurers.

With flood damage seeming to be more common, we get a lot of questions about how car insurance works with flooding, including:

• Will car insurance cover flood damage?
• Does car insurance cover water damage to your car’s engine?
• Can you insure a flood-damaged car?

Here, we’ll explore everything there is to know about car insurance and flood damage.

Will car insurance cover flood damage?

Like many topics that relate to insurance claims, there’s no simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer when it comes to flood damage being covered by car insurance.

Instead, like most claims, you’ll find that the circumstances surrounding the flood damage will be looked into – and any claim will be based on what’s happened specifically.

Firstly, it’s important to note that only comprehensive insurance covers flood damage – and that’s because of the way that insurance companies categorise claims. 

As far as an insurer is concerned, claims fall into one of two brackets – ‘at-fault’ and ‘non-fault’. An incident is considered a non-fault claim when another person is to blame – and, as a result, your insurer reclaims any repair costs from their insurer. Unfortunately, any instance where repair costs cannot be reclaimed is generally considered an at-fault claim – simply because there’s no way of recouping the money required to put your car right. As such, third party, and third party, fire and theft policies will not cover you for water damage.

Check for exclusions

So, if you’ve got fully comprehensive cover, then you’re protected against water and flood damage then?
Again, it’s still not that simple.

You may have heard about ‘Acts of God’ in relation to insurance. It’s the term that’s traditionally been used to describe any unforeseen and naturally occurring incident that’s led to your property being damaged. In the past, it was often thought of as a way the insurers avoided paying out – but in actual fact, as long as you have fully comprehensive cover, you’ll find events like these are considered unavoidable – so you’ll often be covered.

It’s important that you check though – because since insurers moved away from using the term Act of God – they’ve become more specific about what kind of incidents they don’t provide cover for. If you’re worried about flooding – check your policy paperwork carefully and don’t be afraid to ask if flooding is excluded from the events you can claim for – as each insurer might be a little different.

When we shop for insurance, we tend to focus on the most important elements – like the cover type, the excess, and the monthly payment – but if you end up with a floating car, you’ll wish you’d taken a few more minutes to explore your specific insurer’s approach to water damage!

Are you at fault?

Generally, when we think of flood damage to cars, we think about scenes on the news where we see houses and cars underwater – but in actual fact, most flood damage happens when people are driving.

Cars are not designed to deal with much standing water – in fact, just 6 inches (15cm) of water is enough to reach the bottom of the doors on many cars – and you might be surprised to find that even 12 inches (30cm) of water could make a car float. When water is flowing, anything over 18 inches (45cm) of water could potentially carry your car away. 

The trouble is, it’s impossible to judge the depth of water when you’re driving – so splashing through a slightly flooded road or large puddle could be enough to stall your engine and let water into the car. 

If you’ve driven your car into water – or you’ve parked your car somewhere that there’s a strong possibility water with reach (a slipway on to a beach for instance), then there’s a good chance that your insurer will consider the accident to be avoidable and may not payout. There are exceptions to this – if you were already cut off by water and trying to get out, for example – but if you’ve caused your car to enter the water, you might find your insurer won’t payout.

On the other hand, if flooding was completely unforeseen, then the incident will generally be considered unavoidable. This would be the case if your car was flooded where you usually park it, for example. 
Overall, if you’ve got fully comprehensive cover with no flood damage exclusions – and the damage was unavoidable, then you’ll probably find that your insurer will cover the damage done to your car.

Does car insurance cover water damage to engines?

Although water can do a lot of costly damage to the interior of your car, perhaps the most expensive damage to put right is water damage to your engine. Effectively, engines have to ‘breathe’ – taking air in to help combustion – and breathing the waste gases out through the exhaust system.

Unfortunately, this means there’s plenty of opportunities for water to get into the mechanical workings for your vehicle – and, if it does, the repair bill can be thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) of pounds.

The good news is, as long as you didn’t drive into the water, and you have fully comprehensive cover – again, with no exclusions – you should find that you’re protected against any big repair bills relating to your engine.

Where can I find insurance for a flood-damaged car?

Now we know the circumstances around claiming for flood damage – what happens if you’ve bought a car that has existing water damage? Where can you find insurance cover?

Fortunately, there are plenty of insurers who will provide cover for previously accident damaged vehicles.

Finding insurance for a vehicle that’s previously been flooded will depend on the severity of the damage and whether or not the car’s been written off by the insurance company that was providing cover at the time. Insurance assessors use a code system to describe the damage done to a car – and what needs to be done with the car after the claim. Those categories used to be A, B, C, and D – but have now been changed to A, B, S, and N.

You should never, under any circumstances, buy a car that’s been either a Category A or B write off. By law, these cars must be destroyed – and in some instances, even selling the parts is illegal. If flood damage has led to a Cat A or B write off, you will not find an insurance company willing to issue cover.

Since Category S covers any structural damage – you’ll generally find that flood/water damage is considered a Category N write off – meaning there’s no damage to the overall structure of the vehicle, but you may find there’s damage to the engine, brakes, steering, and electrics. At Car.co.uk, we work with a range of specialist insurers who can offer cover for Category N damaged vehicles – so you’ll have no problem getting cover at a great price.