Insurance Q

5500

Id rang up my insurance company there awhile ago to increase the value of my car and declare some mods.I told them the exact mod's eg bodykit,wheels,soundsystem and the guy said there was no point in him taking that info down that unless there was any difference in the engine displacement then its not classed as a "modification" but he would increase the cars value anyways.

I asked him what way does it work for paying out if your car is stolen ect and he said you only get the market value of your car so even if its insured at say 20k if the book estimate is 2k thats all you get.
I said even though i had receipts for everything i had bought does that not make a difference and he said no.

Im basically just wondering are the company obliged to cover the extra cost of the modifications seeing as they were declared with reciepts ect.

It seems pointless (and a consumer rip off) that they will increasing the value of the car and add extra onto your premium to do so when there only going to give you the book price of the car if its stolen

junkyard

Thats nothing new with insurance companies, you get minimum cover for maximum premiums. You can insure a car for any amount but the insurance companies will only pay out what they think the value of your car is, and this is never the true value of your car. If you go looking to replace your car you will always have to put money with it to replace it.

dawballz

Why would you bother doing up your car?
Apart from a nice soundsystem, I can't see why any other 'mod' is worthwhile.

But yeah, insurance companies will rape you no matter what you do.

69 mustang

Yep its the same if you buy a van for say E10,000 +2,100vat you are only meant to give the value -vat if registered for vat as the insurance companies will only pay you the -vat amount.
I also gave the similar warning to the girl looking to buy the Figaro.
As insurance companies will only tell you what you ask.then bite you in the ass come "D day".
:eek:

5500

Ive gotten onto the IIF about it to see what there response is as it doesnt seem right that your premium can be increased to increase the value of the car but yet regardless of that they still wont pay you what its insured for in the event of a claim!!

Is there anyone on here who has claimed before with modifications declared and recieved there full asking amount?

Cerberus

When I was insuring my car I asked this question three times in three different ways just to be sure and the answer each time was "value the car at the amount it would cost to replace it as it is now, including any modifications". In hindsight, I should have asked for written confirmation of this. My car was worth about 17000 at the time with modifications to the value of 7000 on top of that. In the end I settled on a value of 19000, as that's all the mods would have been worth if I went to sell it anyway. This was with FBD by the way. It would be interesting to see what would happen if it was knicked or wrecked...

69 mustang

eireal wrote:

Ive gotten onto the IIF about it to see what there response is as it doesnt seem right that your premium can be increased to increase the value of the car but yet regardless of that they still wont pay you what its insured for in the event of a claim!!

Ah yes the old "It doesn't seem right" or or that other timeless classic "It doesn't doesn't make sense" you can't buy this album in the shops but live in Ireland and you'll experience it every day.

Also on a more sane note; In many other countries your car is insured on BHP and not CC {2.0L 2ton car would pay less than a 1200kg car also with a 2.0L, as the 2ton car would be slower}

5500

69 mustang wrote:

Also on a more sane note; In many other countries your car is insured on BHP and not CC {2.0L 2ton car would pay less than a 1200kg car also with a 2.0L, as the 2ton car would be slower}

Not neccessarily,if they both have the same bhp then regardless of there weight they should still be classed in the same group if its based on bhp shouldnt they?

I dont think cars are insured on CC here either,To the best of my knowledge a honda civic vti here is classed in a higher insurance group than an audi TT

69 mustang

BHP not HP.
Just repeating previous conversations .But to my knowledge BHP= Power to weight ratio and hp = the motors out put
They do include other factors too when grouping insurance. I do know that the UK have a group rating but that doesn't stand here.
Some times it seems like they use some sort of random number machine.
Hay but as the add says "I'm not a dentist" just just got nothing better to do.

unkel

eireal wrote:

he said you only get the market value of your car so even if its insured at say 20k if the book estimate is 2k thats all you get

Sad but true

eireal wrote:

Not neccessarily,if they both have the same bhp then regardless of there weight they should still be classed in the same group if its based on bhp shouldnt they?

No. Quotes should be based on statistics. My 3.5 liter V8 7-series was a lot cheaper to insure than a same value less powerful 2.5 liter straight 6 5-series. Why? I can only assume that the claims data for my car are a bit better than for the other car

69 mustang

unkel wrote:

Sad but true



No. Quotes should be based on statistics. My 3.5 liter V8 7-series was a lot cheaper to insure than a same value less powerful 2.5 liter straight 6 5-series. Why? I can only assume that the claims data for my car are a bit better than for the other car

Thats true too

Also how do you do that double quote thing in the one reply.

layke

Yes but my mate is an insurance underwriter and he has signed off cheques for 100k before in an accident. Thats why it's so high if they deem you as a risk.

I'm not saying it isn't a rip off but consider the above.

unkel

69 mustang wrote:

how do you do that double quote thing in the one reply.

Quote and quote again separately and copy the relevant stuff from the second quote into the first quote

alias no.9

What it all boils down to is that modifications, however tasteful, rarely if ever add anything to the value of a car, if anything they can make it much more difficult to sell, potentially even reducing it's value. So despite the fact you spend 10k on a car and 5k on modifications, the car will rarely ever be worth more than 10k on the open market and that is the insured value. If you're intent on spending large sums on modificaions, you should go into it with your eyes open, you'll never get your money back even if you sell it on.

5500

alias no.9 wrote:

you'll never get your money back even if you sell it on.

Alot of people say this but ive had Three previous modified cars and made a profit on all of them,granted it may have only been 500euro or so i still didnt loose out for any work i had put into the cars.

As the saying goes "there's an arse for every seat"!

If your car is found robbed and thrashed and the insurance assesor comes out to go over it,and for instance if he agrees the car was worth say 15k as declared,does he or the insurance company themselfs have the final say on if that will be payed out?

Seth Brundle

eireal wrote:

I dont think cars are insured on CC here either,To the best of my knowledge a honda civic vti here is classed in a higher insurance group than an audi TT

It is based on a number of factors - likelihood of an incident, cost of repair/replacment, etc.
The Thatcham system in the UK is an excellent reference for UK owners to find out the grouping of their car. Over here though the different companys compile their groupings on their own statistics

unkel wrote:

No. Quotes should be based on statistics. My 3.5 liter V8 7-series was a lot cheaper to insure than a same value less powerful 2.5 liter straight 6 5-series. Why? I can only assume that the claims data for my car are a bit better than for the other car

When I got my 2.5L 18 months ago I could have gotten various cars ranging from 2L to 4L without an increase in insurance (then ~€850, now €590 [F.C.]) - strange but true. However, the government wasn't going to be as kind to me on raod tax and petrol tax!

69 mustang wrote:

Also how do you do that double quote thing in the one reply.

what unkel said
Firefox helps a lot with its tabbed browsing!

Seth Brundle

Incidentally whilst renewing this year I was in the AA office and asked the guy about modifying my car and the insurance effects. He seemed totally ignorant of the insurance aspect to it!