Hurricane Harvey: Car owners flooded insurers with claims

For insurers, the losses will affect some more than others

Auto insurers were already bracing for another bad year when the downpour started in Texas, producing potentially hundreds of thousands of new claims.

“We do know that approximately 100,000 claims have come in” as of Thursday, said Matt Stillwell, manager of governmental and regulatory communications at the Insurance Council of Texas, a trade association. He said the number was expected to climb as high as 500,000. “It is looking to be a huge impact on the auto insurance market,” he said.

While homeowners’ insurance policies almost always exclude flood damage, comprehensive auto policies do cover flooding. The typical household in Houston has