General Insurance Chat

[haGGard]

My insurance is due next month on my birthday.

Paid about 500 pounds last year for a totally standard puma, but im in one of the worst post code areas.

Will be fun getting a quote this year with all the mods :lol: But we'll see

 

[yippeekiay]

I'm paying over £400 for my standard Pu' Neil and I'm 42 with an excellent driving record which is mad. I was only paying £300 for my 3 litre Carlton GSi 24v all of 15 years ago and I can get covered for a VXR8 for 'only' £900. I think it may have something to do with me asking for very low excess on the Pu' (i.e. £100 in total) but I'll be checking harder next time as I noticed on one quote I got recently that the policy went down MORE than the extra excesses I put in which was new to me. Usually you get very little for loading the excess.

 

[Scotty1.7]

This sounds really 'upper class' and 'posh boy' but for a giggle i asked my insurance company- virgin what the increas would be to a F355- Ferria (sp)

The only wanted aa extra £100 a month on my current instalment- so £1700 a year.

And you all remeber the temptaion of that VXR500 Monaro? that was a mere £50 a month more- so £1200

Yeah i nearly cried with laughter to- even more so when the DECLINED, yes DECLINED to cover me on Ecos?

 

[Dal]

I'm paying over £400 for my standard Pu' Neil ..

Standard? inkeye: What about the wheels and big brakes?

 

[warrenpenalver]

scotty, the word cosworth usually brings an insurance broker to his knees with a panic attack! not only are they group 20 but they are one of the most stolen cars of all time, even now they are still regularly stolen!!!

 

[yippeekiay]

I'm paying over £400 for my standard Pu' Neil ..

Standard? inkeye: What about the wheels and big brakes?

Yeah, I suppose it isn't standard due to the wheels...lol.
They were no extra cost on the policy. As for my brakes...errm, ahem, they are standard as far as I know as they were on the car when I bought it. :wink: :wink: :wink:

 

[Dal]

Well it's up to you if you declare mods or not I suppose, but it's your responsibility to insure it correctly remember. An assessor can look at them after an accident, and refuse to pay a penny even if it's (god forbid) written off.

 

[yippeekiay]

TBH I wouldn't lose any sleep over losing what it's worth but it would be hard to find one at the same price.

 

[warrenpenalver]

i need to convince someone to let me in the RSOC as cossies get super cheap insurance through boncaster! same i sold the RS fiesta but i couldnt keep both! Might end up buying a rotten auction rs2000 just to get the id to be in RSOC lol.

 

[Pumadaddy]

Well it's up to you if you declare mods or not I suppose, but it's your responsibility to insure it correctly remember. An assessor can look at them after an accident, and refuse to pay a penny even if it's (god forbid) written off.

If the insurer can prove the car was modified and they have not been informed, there's a good chance they may consider the policy null and void. This could cause many problems for both parties in a claim.

There was evidence a few years ago of an insurer reading the car forums and then voided a claim because the claimant hadn't declared some mods.

 

[yippeekiay]

They can look as much on forums as they want....my name really is yippeekiay k:

You'd think having upgraded brakes would give you a discount...insurance companies haven't got a clue...lol

 

[crystalpuma]

If cars with modified brakes feature in car accidents more often than cars with standard brakes then they are a higher risk, hence more expensive. You could argue the car is more likely to be driven hard, or even recklessly (so tempted to spell that differently...) with the better brakes, and hence more likely to be in an accident.

 

[Pumadaddy]

They can look as much on forums as they want....my name really is yippeekiay k:

You'd think having upgraded brakes would give you a discount...insurance companies haven't got a clue...lol

it wouldn't take too much detective work to mate up you and your car from pictures and info that you post quite readily on the net.

It makes no difference to me, as hopefully you will never run into me.

I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm trying to help people be properly covered, by the law and their insurance, sorry if you took any offence from this.

 

[yippeekiay]

No offence taken, just replying to an opinion

As I had already took out insurance before the brake upgrade I can't be bothered with an insurance company finding a reason to add to my premium once I've already taken it out....which they do. I 'may' disclose this upgrade this year to see if it affects my policy (which I don't think it will) and decide from there.

I don't think something as simple as brakes would flag anything up in an accident unless they went through it with a fine tooth comb because of a (god forbid) fatality. Any 'normal' accident and it's following assessment would pretty much come to the conclusion that they were standard discs (ford) with standard calipers (also ford), with standard hubs/cables/sensors etc etc (all ford). They are looking for an 'obvious' flaw/failure in the condition of a vehicle which could have caused an accident and the value of it before said accident. Any assessor would have to know every single standard part, size, specification to determine whether they were standard or not, if they were grooved discs and super dooper painted calipers they would stick out like a sore thumb.

I believe they need to think about what they call mods and otherwise that affect the performance in a way that could deem an accident more probable. I mean, if one person had top of the range brand tyres and one only had cheap and nasty budget/retreads that would, imo, be much more of an impact on the performance of a vehicle regarding it's probability of being in or causing an accident.

Didn't mean to waffle that much so I'll shut up before I write a dissertation on nothing in particular....lol

 

[skyinsurance]

as daft as it sounds, it may be worth mentioning that you are a member of an owner's club, it knocked £25 off mine for being in the XROC

It doesn't sound daft at all Pumadaddy. Our stats cleatly show that the customer who takes the time to look after/modify their car and join an owners club is a lesser insurance risk than your average Joe. This is exactly why we offer our discount/prefferential rates to our affiliated car club members.

Ollie
Sky Insurance

 

[skyinsurance]

As I had already took out insurance before the brake upgrade I can't be bothered with an insurance company finding a reason to add to my premium once I've already taken it out....which they do. I 'may' disclose this upgrade this year to see if it affects my policy (which I don't think it will) and decide from there.

If you picked your insurer carefully before you started the policy you would have realised that a brake upgrade would not have changed your premium what so ever. Quite often my company will insure a modified car for cheaper than we would a standard car.
Really, is there any point in not disclosing your modifications?

 

[yippeekiay]

If you picked your insurer carefully before you started the policy you would have realised that a brake upgrade would not have changed your premium what so ever. Quite often my company will insure a modified car for cheaper than we would a standard car.
Really, is there any point in not disclosing your modifications?

I would have done had the insurance broker I had gone with not deceived me on the quote of cover I original paid for. I thought I had picked a good insurer as all the information I was given was exactly what I wanted....until the money was handed over at which point on getting my documents - which I checked as always, I contacted them regarding a few queries and was told on one query that my policy did not have NCB protection even though their quote showed it did and that I'd paid a premium for said protection. This was only one of several omissions from the original quote. After not resolving any query I expressed my wish to cancel the policy to which they then had the cheek to ask for over £100 cancellation fee if I did, this was even though it stated they had a 7 day right to cancel. No amount of correspondence thereafter could change their stance even though I had 100% proof of their original quote. I wasn't prepared to lose £100+ for less than a weeks cover to make my point so have had to stay with them unfortunately.

I normally ALWAYS declare any modifications but as I had already had a taste of their incompetence (one person said my wheels would cost an extra £25 then another said nothing when I took up the quote) I had the feeling that after I had the brakes upgraded they would probably want to add on to my policy by a huge amount just to be awkward or through plain stupidity from their employees who seemed to be totally untrained in the products they were selling (or trained especially to omit certain information). You'd think these people would know what their own products covered when they sold them and didn't give false information with the sole object being selling a policy no matter what.

All I ask is that I am covered 100% for all eventualities and that the only thing I lose in the event of an accident is nothing more than the inconvenience it may cause. Needless to say, I won't be using them again. TBH, I can't wait until the policy expires believe it or not so that I can get one that I actually asked for, and I will go with a well known name next time like I have in the past - never thought I'd be saying I'm looking forward to spending more money, especially on car insurance when the poor thing is sat on the drive at least 6 days out of 7...lol

 

[haGGard]

Well i paid, 500 last year, got my renewal in the other day, and they want 800 POUNDS!!!! LOL. I wonder how they worked that one out??? :lol:

I never stick with the same company for more than a year anyway.

 

[Scotty1.7]

Thats some rise Hag- have you questioned it?

 

[haGGard]

Nah, but even if it was only a 20 pound drop, i dont stay with them. Most insurance companies like to give their low quotes to attract new customers, not bothering to reward their existing ones with lower renewals.