"Were you driving such that you could avoid a hazard?" I thought I was but as I ended up in the water, clearly I was mistaken. If I hadn't been driving fairly cautiously - if I'd entered the flood at 40mph say, rather than the approx 20mph I actually entered it (I was braking hard at the time) - I think it might have helped me. The evidence of water ingress might have been more obvious.

It's not clear from my first post but the incident happened at night - there was no time for decision-making. I spotted the unsigned 'flood' too late to take avoiding action.

T4tters and TONY BELL, I know exactly how you feel. On Dec 26 2014, I drove through a road-wide rainwater flood, wrecking my car's engine in the process. It took AXA 12 days to collect the car and a further 43 days to properly inspect it. After the inspection they phoned me to say that there was no evidence of water ingress and that the 'blown turbo' and 'low compression in one engine cylinder' were age-related faults. The fact that my vehicle's serious engine problems had manifested themselves at the the exact moment I hit the flood was described as coincidental. I too felt that I was, in effect, being accused of fraud. After their engine inspection (during which no photographs were taken of crucial components like the air filter) AXA arranged for an independent inspection to be carried out by Hoopers. The Hoopers engineer called me straight after his inspection to say he'd found no evidence of water ingress either (the most telling evidence was, apparently, the undamaged air filter). When I asked him if he could think of any way for the turbo to have been damaged without air filter damage he suggested one scenario but thought this 'unlikely'. When AXA finally deigned to pass on a copy of the Hoopers report (April 16!) I was struck by its brevity and unprofessionalism. The photographic portion of the report contained a picture of a component not from my car, and an image of an electrical fault report consistent with water damage (this fault report had never been mentioned to me and wasn't referred to in the text of the report). There was an image of the filter box interior that, I believe, shows brown water staining marks. In the text, though the inspector admits he hasn't thoroughly inspected the engine... "We were unable to rotate the engine, to confirm piston height, examination of the piston crowns and number 2 & 3 cylinder bores which were visible showed no evidence of water contamination. To establish the cause of the low compression in number two cylinder, the engine would require further stripping” he is happy to state unconditionally... “I consider that the vehicle has suffered a mechanical failure of the turbo charger, resulting in the loss of power and smoke emissions, as mechanical failure is not covered under your policy conditions I consider you have no liability in this matter” Myself, my family and my friends will never use AXA ever again for any form of insurance. My advice to anyone that finds themselves involved in a vehicular flood incident: 1.Take as many photographs as possible of the damage. Ideally, photograph the air filter. 2. Insist early on, on your insurer contacting you only by email (AXA, deliberately I believe, chose to communicate with me solely over the phone, making subsequent complaining difficult) 3. If insurer offers to organise an independent inspection, insist they don't use Hoopers. 4. Don't put too much faith in the Financial Ombudsman Service. I took my AXA complaints to FOS and though they upheld some of them, they were incredibly reluctant to challenge anything said or done by the 'experts' at AXA and Hoopers.