Dealing with a car flooded after sandy

NEW YORK - is without power in Manhattan, because the storm Sandy Doug Block in denial about his car taken. The 2003 is Pontiac Vibe in a garage on the East, 20th Street - a good two blocks from the East River - and flooding, probably on the top of its hood. Block, 59, has not seen but not really know the car what it is in the State, and he knows quite what to do.

"My wife filed with state farm, and we wait a request, again to hear from them," block says by e-Mail. "We have been not even able to assess the damage far enough." "But we parked languages with other nearby destroyed where we are and have been their cars, so we are assuming the worst."

Block, a documentary filmmaker and his wife, a law professor teaches on long Iceland, now, try to rent a car, so they can get to work, but available vehicles and gas are scarce in Manhattan.

So, now they wait.

While attention to was the storm to those with working cars, gas, can not get there are potentially hundreds of thousands of flooded cars throughout the region. An iconic picture of storm damage shows a whole in Hoboken under water the taxi fleet.

State Farm auto receivables were up to 8,000 on Thursday afternoon - almost as many claims as the company for Hurricane Irene last year and double what the claims were on the previous day. USAA, a different insurer, says 4,000 car claims on Thursday afternoon were reported.

Compared to after Hurricane Katrina, there were flooded 325,000 known vehicles that were, says Frank Scafidi, Public Affairs Director of the national insurance Crime Bureau.

This storm could produce a similar number, but not everyone with a flooded car because Sandy has submitted still a demand.

Captain Paul F. Beglane of the Marines is stranded on a barge oil in a hurricane berth in Newark, New Jersey. However, his truck is in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and it has probably flooded. "All the waterways are closed but traffic and safety in the port of port Newark allow emergency no sailors or from our ships moored during we are their dock", Beglane said by e-Mail.

Time to the file
There are no special hurry for Beglane, says state farm spokesman Holly Anderson because most cars, which are flooded behind the dashboard aggregate are totaled by the insurance company. The electronics inside are just too sensitive to water, and most of them are so expensive that an older car is economic only scrap to fix.


The good news is that car owners fall with comprehensive coverage for water events, and probably not the same kind denied parts of the cover homeowners, who may face different hurdles with insurers as a House and or haggling.

Cars with minimal damage can be corrected if they are properly dried up. Insurers suggest with a wet car of a mechanic be examined before starting the engine. "Flooded cars are not always summed after Nicole Alley", a USAA spokesman. "It comes to the water level and type of water - salt, brackish water or clean water."

The disadvantage is, that the dollar value amounted to one not can match their functional value of a family car. Block, for example, has a $500 deductible and not much money in return for his 10-year-old set of wheels is expected. "It is too bad, especially because we loved the car and run it fine - was because we put a good amount of repairs last year", he says.

If you don't, what condition your car knowledge in as Beglane, however, can submit a request and get an insurance adjustor take a look.

And what if you find your car not because it floated away? The insurance can go to. "We will not go in the ocean floor look, but if your car was floating way, it is something that anyway will be counted together to", State says farm Anderson.

Trouble on the road
The real problem will come later, if cars that have amounted to were after flooding or go back on the market, without proper disclosure renovated.


"People who are smart enough to pick a salvage vehicle and have a decent vehicle to sell, but they know that it flooded, been" Scafidi of the national insurance Crime Bureau says.

What should happen if an insurance policy is a car is that the title have denounced calls, since flooded and summed. This record national insurance Crime Bureau or a service such as CarFax available should be public, a database managed by the. Also, if a car was flooded, but not added to noted on its records. But this happens not always.

"A vendor X and sales in the State y get a clean title from the State, and the buyer is none wiser," says Scafidi. That is, until the car begins fall apart or grow mold.

He says block his Pontiac will miss, but realizes how blessed he is in the order of things. "It could be certainly better, but they might be sure a whole lot worse," says block.