Your insurance may not cover flood damage, so make sure your car stays dry!
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: September 25, 2024
Host: So you’ve figured out you’re going to stay put during the storm. You’ve secured your home. But you may not have thought much about your car — even though that’s potentially the asset most at risk. We checked with experts for advice about how to secure your car ahead of a storm, and what to heed once the worst weather is over.
Johannes Werner: Debby flooded hundreds of homes in the Sarasota and Manatee area. That number is known. But that’s not the case with vehicles that were damaged or ruined by water. The exact number of vehicle losses is hard to come by. According to used-car information site Carfax, from June through August this hurricane season, 89,000 vehicles nationwide suffered water damage. Florida and Texas are the leading states. Already, 62,000 vehicles in our state are registered as water damaged.
Florida Statutes require that the state indicate on the title that the vehicle is flood damaged. When a vehicle is flooded, the insurance company will mark the vehicle and report it to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That, in turn, triggers what’s called a “brand” that appears in the vehicle’s title. And that puts a major damper on the resale value.
Don’t bet on your car insurance. Most policies do not cover flood. If you only have liability — not comprehensive — coverage, take as much care as possible and avoid flooding.
So don’t be the next casualty and prepare. For starters, fill up the tank or charge the battery of your EV so you have at least the option to drive, even if there’s no gasoline or power after the storm.
If your home is flooded, so will likely be the car in your garage. That’s why, if you’re staying put, you should consider what’s called strategic parking — moving your vehicle to higher ground. That could be a public garage, or simply a street that’s a few feet above where you are. If there’s no higher ground nearby, at least park your car next to a sturdy structure.
If you live in an area prone to flooding, consider an elevated structure to park your car, such as a car lift or ramp.
Last resort: A sturdy car cover. That will at least protect your vehicle from rainwater, which — during strong storms — can come not just from above but sideways.
Once the storm is over, it’s not over. That’s actually when most damage occurs: Drivers trying to leave their shelter and getting stranded on flooded roads. Police can’t repeat it often enough: Don’t drive on flooded roads. Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman:
Kurt Hoffman: I want to emphasize the dangers of this kind of storm as it relates to law enforcement issues. We know from Debbie we had a loss of life here in Sarasota when a car went into a flooded area and the individual unfortunately perished.
So, flooded streets. I want to emphasize to our citizens, don’t drive on these streets. You might see six inches of water, eight inches of water, and think that you can get through there, but in the cases of even some of our deputies got into some areas where the water rose so quickly, we weren’t able to get out of there, and obviously we had a lot of stranded vehicles. That’s downtime for law enforcement. We’ve got to check those vehicles. We’ve got to make sure that it’s not folks in them, and there’s nobody that needs rescue.
JW: If you end up driving your car into water and it stalls, don’t try to restart it. The air intake is usually below the bumper, and it sucks the water right into the engine. Call a towing company instead. That’s still cheaper than the new engine you may need if you try to restart underwater.
For WSLR News, this has been Johannes Werner.
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