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Article snippet: It has become predictable. First come the hurricane and flooding. Then come the dire warnings about waterlogged cars being put up for sale without any notice about flood damage. This year’s big storms have flooded a huge number of vehicles — hundreds of thousands, if not the half-million that were initially feared. But with some basic due diligence — and a discerning eye — you can usually avoid buying a water-damaged car from an unscrupulous seller. Most newer vehicles hit by the storms will be written off as total losses by the insurance companies. The owner will receive a check, and the insurance company will take possession of the vehicle, reporting it to searchable databases. The National Insurance Crime Bureau said this week that nearly 270,000 insurance claims related to Hurricane Harvey vehicle damage had been processed, and nearly another 70,000 for Hurricane Irma. It is not clear how many of those claims will be declared total losses. Cars that are totaled by the insurance company go to a salvage auction company. Insurance Auto Auctions, based in Illinois, listed an inventory of 46,000 flood vehicles on its website early this week, although the number was not broken down by storm. Copart, a salvage auction company that processes three million cars a year from 200 locations around the world, said it had gathered more than 30,000 Harvey cars at two sites in Texas as of a week ago. Buyers who go to a salvage auction can be certain that a vehicle there has b... Link to the full article to read more