The number of cars sustaining engine damage due to heavy rain is swelling dramatically in Beijing, but only a small number of car owners opt to buy flood damage insurance.

"We have witnessed a sharp increase in claims during the last month," said a car insurance claim specialist from China Pacific Insurance Co Ltd. "But since most of them didn't have flood damage insurance, they won't get compensation for their losses."

He said that the flood damage insurance is an additional insurance that "has to be purchased separately".

On May 7, hundreds of cars were damaged when heavy rain flooded an underground parking lot in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. The owners of cars whose engines were ruined had to pay thousands of yuan to replace them.

When the engine of a car is flooded, there is a good chance that it will be destroyed when the driver tries to start it, and as the "heart" of a car, the damage to the engine can easily go beyond one-third the cost of the car.

Wang Tao, a sales manager in a brewery company in Beijing, purchased flood damage insurance for his Citroen after he learned of this incident.

"My friends are beginning to buy this insurance after several storms in Beijing," Wang said. "It might help a little bit if our cars one day get stuck in the rain."

Usually, the cost of the flood damage insurance is five percent of the insurance for loss, said Wang Feng, deputy director of PICC Beijing Branch Claims Center.

However, about 90 percent of car owners don't buy this insurance, according to a claim specialist from Ping An Insurance Company of China. He said he had handled hundreds of cases but didn't remember a single vehicle with flood damage insurance.

According to an online survey done by BitAuto, the biggest auto website in China, more than 60 percent of the 2,374 respondents said they wouldn't purchase the extra insurance; while the 17 percent who replied that they were willing to buy the insurance were mainly from Guangzhou.

However, flood damage insurance usually has very strict conditions.

A specialist, surnamed Liu, from China Pacific Insurance Co Ltd, Chaoyang office, told METRO that the car has to be checked before the owner can purchase this insurance.

"We have to check the condition of the car, especially the engine, before we sign a contract," he said. "Usually, we only accept cars up to one-year-old."

He also warned that there are a number of conditions that allow the insurance company to avoid paying any compensation to the car owners: when the owner drives the car in the water or forcefully starts the car when the engine is drowned in the water.

"And for high-end cars with very expensive engines, the cost of flood damage insurance will be much greater," Liu added.