Driving into water - Are you covered by insurance for damage. Rufford 29 August 2022 at 10:41AM in Motoring 44 replies 4.1K views

happyc84

Hi, I've been watching the drivers trying to get through the Ford at Rufford. Looks a popular spectator sport.

https://youtu.be/cFZ_DqhR3a8

For those that get stuck is the repair costly and does insurance cover the repair?
Plenty of missing number plates.

Finally  has anyone seen the water at Rufford.

Cheers

Ebe_Scrooge

Insurance covers you for accidental damage (e.g. having a crash), not for normal wear and tear, routine maintenance or stupidity.

Is the repair costly?  Depends.  Might be a case of just letting the electrics dry out and then no problems at all.  Or it could be water gets drawn into the air intake, into the cylinders, in which case you're basically looking at a new engine.

JGB1955

We drove through there last year - great fun!

user1977

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Insurance covers you for accidental damage (e.g. having a crash), not for normal wear and tear, routine maintenance or stupidity.

If it covers you for negligently (or "stupidly") crashing into other vehicles or solid objects, why wouldn't it cover you for stupidly driving into water?

happyc84

Difficult to define Stupidity. To err is human.

ob090450

happyc84 said:

Difficult to define Stupidity. To err is human.

+1. Once the water is in. There is a high chance the engine locks out. 

Brie

It could easily kill an electric or hybrid vehicle.  Ours was ruined when we cracked the undercarriage shell driving in a bad snowstorm.  The snow packed in and destroyed the battery and we were quoted in excess of £1k to simply get a mechanic to look at what might be needed to fix everything with no guarantee that they could actually repair it.   

Personally I think an insurance company would laugh at anyone trying to claim for this.  

Wonder how many cars actually get stuck!!  Might be a lucrative place to park something that can tow them out!

DanDare999

user1977 said:

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Insurance covers you for accidental damage (e.g. having a crash), not for normal wear and tear, routine maintenance or stupidity.

If it covers you for negligently (or "stupidly") crashing into other vehicles or solid objects, why wouldn't it cover you for stupidly driving into water?

Is that a genuine question?

Grumpy_chap

I know someone who did this several (20-odd) years ago.
The insurer initially tried to dismiss the claim on the grounds that it was not an accident but was an act of stupidity.
The individual simply responded that he was stupid, stupidity was not an assessment in the policy criteria, and it was not different him stupidly driving into deep water than stupidly driving into a brick wall.
The insurer paid out.

[Deleted User]

If you ignored warning signs saying that if the water was up to X level, don't proceed, or indeed, drove around barriers it'll be different to going through a recognised ford in the road and getting unlucky. There is one near me which isn't this deep and I've done it on the bicycle a few times, I even went through a flooded bit on the way to work once where my pedals were going underwater which wasn't ideal. Guy who used to do deliveries to my old job in a transit was once caught out when a lorry decided to go through the flood at the same time the other way and the bow wave flooded his transit van engine and killed it.

user1977

DanDare999 said:

user1977 said:

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Insurance covers you for accidental damage (e.g. having a crash), not for normal wear and tear, routine maintenance or stupidity.

If it covers you for negligently (or "stupidly") crashing into other vehicles or solid objects, why wouldn't it cover you for stupidly driving into water?

Is that a genuine question?

Yes. How do you distinguish stupidly driving into water from, say, stupidly overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic (or other things which I don't think we'd argue weren't insured)?