Auto companies are still busy calculating losses that could amount to billions of yuan after two massive explosions in the port city of Tianjin destroyed thousands of imported cars, with insurance experts saying that some losses may not be fully covered.

According to estimates he has seen in the media, the total compensation for damaged vehicles could run to 2 billion yuan ($312.85 million), Wang Guojun, a professor specializing in insurance at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times. 

"Based on the reported number of damaged cars, however, the claims for property damage may not be fully recovered through insurance companies," Wang said.  

Companies may not have taken out insurance to cover the full value of all the vehicles they had imported, which is why there would be a discrepancy between the value and the final payout.

Many major international carmakers lost thousands of vehicles after fire ripped through car lots adjacent to the site of the explosions late Wednesday. Nearly 10,000 new vehicles were destroyed, with total economic losses estimated at 3 billion yuan, the Xinhua News Agency reported.   

Volkswagen lost 2,748 cars in the blasts, with the value of the loss as yet unclear, a source from the German carmaker told the Global Times. While the cars were insured, to what degree they are covered is the problem, the source said.

Nearly 1,500 of the Renault Group's vehicles were destroyed, according to an announcement published on its Weibo account Thursday. According to China Business News, the company had insured the vehicles for up to 500 million yuan. Its lawyers have arrived in Tianjin.

South Korean carmaker Hyundai-Kia also reported that around 4,000 cars were ruined, with an estimated loss of 160 billion won ($136 million). This is expected to be fully covered by insurance, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Toyota Motor Corp said more than 50 of its staff who lived in the area near the blasts were injured and its production lines be closed for three days, sina.com.cn reported Monday. 

Toyota said evacuations in the city had prevented the plant from reopening as scheduled on Sunday after a one-week break. The main Tianjin factory has 12,000 employees. 

The total losses of automobile companies were recorded at 4 billion yuan, and automobile companies are still scrambling to assess the damage to cars and facilities, sina.com.cn reported. 

Though insurance companies have launched emergency plans to respond to the incident in the short-term, the insurance payouts may vary according to different insurance plans, Su Jianhua, a local car dealer who sells luxury vehicles such as Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz in Tianjin port, told the Global Times Monday. 

Tianjin port handles the largest number of auto imports in China.  

"About a dozen of our company's vehicles stored in a warehouse 4 kilometers from the epicenter of the blasts have been affected by the blasts, however they're not fully insured," Su said, adding that the damage mainly involves broken glass. 

Su said that as he had contracted his storage to a local warehouse that had not bought proper commercial insurance, the level of coverage limits the warehouse's liability when it comes to severe incidents. 

"The total value of our company's damaged properties is estimated at 100,000 yuan, and the company will bear the loss itself," he said. 

Usually, exporters and importers adopt warehouse-to-warehouse clauses in cargo transportation, said Wang. He noted that the clause usually covers cargo from the moment it leaves the original storage facility until the moment it arrives at the destination warehouse facility. 

"Separate coverage is necessary to insure the cargo while it is being stored in either warehouse," he said. 

China imported 372.4 billion yuan worth of cars in cars in 2014 and more than 500,000 units, or about 40 percent of all imported cars, passed through Tianjin's port in 2014, Xinhua reported. 

Property insurance has been underestimated in the country for years, especially in logistics and supply chains, a person close to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission told the Global Times Monday. "The total insurance payout will be lower than the actual losses," he said.

Tianjin port authority said operations have returned to normal. Its main shipping lanes were open to traffic except those located in the blast site.