During Hurricane Irene, my car was damaged by water while parked at home. Am I covered?

You're covered only if you have comprehensive insurance. Car insurance includes several types of coverage--bodily injury liability, property damage liability, medical payments or personal injury protection, collision, comprehensive, uninsured/underinsured motorist, and extras, such as roadside assistance.

All states except New Hampshire require car owners to carry liability car insurance, which pays for damage and injuries suffered by others when you cause an accident. Some states also require personal injury protection or medical payments coverage, which pay your medical bills after an accident. Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage pays your medical bills if your car is struck by an uninsured or underinsured driver or you're the victim of a hit-and-run.

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Both collision and comprehensive are optional in all states. Collision coverage pays for repairs of your own vehicle after a traffic accident, and comprehensive insurance covers losses from causes other than traffic accidents, including natural disasters, such as flooding. Although no states require car owners to carry collision and comprehensive, your lender may require both if you took out a loan to purchase the car.

Whether your car is worth repairing depends on how severely it was flooded. Generally, if the water went past the floorboards into the vehicle's electronic systems, then the car will be considered a total loss. In that case, if you have comprehensive coverage, the insurer will pay you the car's current market value (before it was flooded), minus the deductible.

Contact your car insurance agent or company, if you haven't already done so, to report the car's exposure to flooding. The National Automobile Dealers Association also recommends that you record the highest level of water exposure on the vehicle. That information will help technicians to evaluate the car and take the necessary steps to repair the damage.

For more, see Flood-damaged cars: Your top questions answered.