That amount will likely rise in coming days and is expected to surpass insurance payouts related to Hurricane Charley earlier in the month.

Calls from property owners to insurers indicated the worst of the storm hit the Isle of Palms, East Cooper and North Charleston, according to the South Carolina Insurance News Service. The Columbia-based industry trade group polled 20 insurance companies representing 65 percent of the state's property and casualty coverage and said most of the damage resulted from fallen trees, shingles ripped off roofs and automobiles submerged in 8-10 inches of rain.

Close to 2,600 claims were filed Monday, averaging $2,000 apiece. Homes made up almost all of those claims, while autos accounted for just over 200.

The hard part now is figuring out who is covered for what.

"It is so important to check the language in your policy," said Allison Dean Love, executive director of South Carolina Insurance News Service. "A lot of times coverage depends on how things are worded."

The changing nature of homeowners' policies in recent years has made it trickier than ever for policyholders to know how a particular storm or disaster is covered. Often the tweaks have led to higher out-of-pocket costs for homeowners, like the shift by many insurers from a fixed-dollar deductible to one based on a percentage of a home's value.

Deductibles once set at $500 or $1,000, for instance, may now only be offered in terms of 1 percent to 5 percent of a home's value, leaving the homeowner to bear more of the cost.

The hit that insurers took following hurricanes Andrew and Hugo also caused many to be more picky about coastal coverage. Some refused to take on new business in exposed areas like Folly Beach while others altogether abandoned barrier islands.

When it comes to Gaston, its designation as a tropical storm rather than a hurricane also matters.

For instance, the way Nationwide Insurance looks at Gaston highlights just how a few miles per hour makes a difference in what kind of coverage kicks in.

Most policyholders paying for Nationwide's more expensive "hurricane" premium, on top of their standard policy, must cover a fixed-dollar deductible of $250, $500 or $1,000, depending on their policy, said Kevin Craiglow, a spokesman for Nationwide. Others carrying a cheaper "wind and hail" provision will have to pay a 1 percent or 2 percent deductible.

Still, Craiglow points out that this breakdown doesn't include everyone. "We don't write these types of coverage for properties in certain areas near the coast," he said. "That would have to be covered by someone else like the (state-run) wind pool."

The wind pool is a grouping of private insurers that get together to share risk. The pool is required by the state and generally is an insurer of last resort, meaning homeowners go there when no one else will write their policies. As such, it's correspondingly more expensive. Flood insurance is also a special provision homeowners must buy if they want coverage, and it's backed by the federal government.

Because it was not declared a hurricane, State Farm, the state's biggest insurer of homes, will weigh Gaston's claims much the same way as Nationwide. On the other hand, Allstate, the state's second biggest, is still deciding whether to apply its "tropical cyclone" deductible based on percentage deductibles.

Regardless of the storm's classification, some insurers are projecting that Gaston will cost them more than Charley. The South Carolina Farm Bureau reported 400 claims by Monday, compared with 300 for all its Charley payouts.

The Insurance News Service estimated that Charley cost insurers between $8 million and $10 million.

Property Claims Service, a unit of Insurance Services Office and known as the industry standard for assessing insured damages, said the figure was closer to $20 million.

Dean Love wasn't sure why there was such a wide discrepancy, saying that "we're still talking about small numbers relative to figures like Charley in Florida." That came to $6.8 billion, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

"What scare me is (Hurricane) Frances," Dean Love said. "If it hits us like the models are forecasting, then this is going to be big."

Hurricane Frances and its 120 mph winds are expected to make landfall in Florida this weekend.

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