heavy mods + insurance

J

jjagain

New member
I don't know if this trend is all over north america, but around here if you have *ANY* performance mods and the insurance companies find out, you're toast. dropped and denied coverage so fast that your head will spin.



case in point. some local guys who are heavily into motorsports hit a deer in their modded WRX. because the car had a roll cage and some other mods, they were denied coverage (THEY HIT A FRICKIN DEER) and dropped!



how are car enthousiasts supposed to do anything anymore?? does anyone have this problem? do you just not tell your insurance co and play russian roulette?
 
from what I understand, if they can not prove that the mod's caused the accident or caused more damage than what would have hapened on a stock car, then they have no legal right to drop the policy. It might depend on the state you live in though. I would go to lawyer and see what they say.
 
This is simply not true, and those guys could have fought it in court and easily won. A modification like a rollcage did no part in aiding in hitting the dear, therefore the coverage should not be affected. IF the accident is DUE to a certain modification, then the insurance company has a right to deny coverage. Most insurance companies do not care about modifications, unless they aide in the damage of the vehicle.
 
My insurance agent drives a modded Firebird. :eek: He also knows I've added a header, cold air intake, pulleys, exhaust and some suspension mods to my Accord. He has no problem with it. Of course, my car is nowhere near as fast as a WRX.
 
Can't speak for the US but in the UK, an underwriter will ask for details of any modifications (and there are a fair few insurers who've set their stall out for modded cars as many of the UK autopians will tell you).



HOWEVER, an insurer is entitled to know details of ALL modifications to a vehicle, as this may affect their assessment or acceptance of the risk being presented to them. If they consider, after the event, that a non-disclosed modification may have given them cuase to decline the risk in the first place, they will refuse to pay a claim and may void the cover from inception.



The issue with Japanese cars in particular is that you can add mods which dramatically increase the performance without being visible. Clearly, a dramatic increase in performance could make the risk of an accident higher from the insurer's viewpoint.



Cosmetic mods can make a car more theft attractive. Example - you take a basic XYZ and add alloys, bodykit, loud exhaust etc etc and make it look like an XYZ Sport GT Turbo. Insurer feels that you should then pay a premium based on the XYZ Sport GT Turbo as the car looks like one which may increase the risk of it being stolen (for parts - big black market over here and I guess the same in the US?)



I know this seems unfair, but I work with insuring exotic and high performance cars every day and have done for 10 years plus. I admit the stuff I handle tends to be extreme (we have a guy who modded his Ferrari F50 for example...) but the principle is the same.



I would ALWAYS advise anyone to declare everything - better safe then sorry. TBH I wouldn't have said a rollcage increases performance or indeed could cause an accident but a rollcage is generally part of a modded car - fair point?



As a car enthusiast and car insurance broker it's hard to walk in the middle on something like this as I can see both arguments!
 
It will come to be in the US as well - anything to wheedle more $ out of us "suckers". Insurance is mandatory and therefore the companies have prettry much a license to steal. The glut of street racing everywhere has a lot to do with it as well.
 
Oh great, I'll have to look into this and see how things are going in this province now... :( Thanks Zilla.
 
4dsc: did you find out anything? I might be moving to BC later this year and I'm interested to know how insurance there treats modded cars.
 
zilla said:
4dsc: did you find out anything? I might be moving to BC later this year and I'm interested to know how insurance there treats modded cars.
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:doh



I forgot all about this issue. I'll have to spend some time and look around the (huge) forum over at www.revscene.net



I don't think it's come up recently as a topic though, with the hotter talk being about Vancouver's proposal to ban car alarms.... :rolleyes:
 
wtf? banning car alarms? that's almost as bad as some of the bylaws we used to have around here like restricting what colour you could paint your garage door, not allowed to hang laundry out to dry in your yard, etc. :hammer:
 
zilla said:
wtf? banning car alarms? that's almost as bad as some of the bylaws we used to have around here like restricting what colour you could paint your garage door, not allowed to hang laundry out to dry in your yard, etc. :hammer:
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Yes, it even got a few minutes coverage on the local news. Apparently some residents and city council members are whining and crying about how car alarms "don't work" and only create a lot of useless noise that wakes people up. :rolleyes: I haven't even read the thread talking about it, because I can just guess what people are saying about this brilliant idea. Honestly I can't see such a bylaw getting passed anyway because.... well, it's just dumb.
 
I live in NY where other than California we prob pay some of the highest premiums in the US. From my experiences I have never suffered lack of coverage or increase in premiums due to mods and most of my cars get pretty heavily modded. They just pretty much give it to you dry no matter what you drive.:) I must say that I hope the US Insurance companies do not adopt those practices you guys in Canada and the UK seem to suffer from because that would be pretty rough.
 
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