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Classic insurance/full coverage question

2K views 32 replies 10 participants last post by  97 V8 Swap 
#1 ·
Anyone here have any good luck with classic ins appraisals if your tbird is more then the average condition/close to stock interior exterior /low miles and not a daily driver .
And if anyone is are they piggybacking the great rate$ and still driving it more then average .
According to the appraisers they re evaluate the car once a year and pinpoint deteriorating conditions and match mileage to see if the value has dropped or if it's been driven as a daily apose too car shows or a weekend thing.

I can get it for roughly 35$ month and 15$ for comprehensive while stored but wanted to know if the appraisers are ******* low ballers usually ? For the cost of 200$ just for the appraisal been told its hard to get the insurance company to accept the appraisers value

Any feedback would be good
 
#2 ·
I struggled with this on my '97. For quite a few years, I had a declared value policy with State Farm, based on an appraisal which took into account the condition of the car and the modifications done to it. Then a couple of years ago, when I had put a bunch more money into the car, I asked them to increase the declared value, and they wouldn't do it. So, I shopped around at the collector car insurance companies, and went with Grundy. They were willing to accept a declared value which I backed up with a detailed list of parts and labor costs for the car as it sits now. Grundy isn't cheap ($725 per year for $40K coverage), but they were a lot less than Hagerty or Heacock. Part of setting the rate with them is you declare how many miles you will drive in a year. I had to sign an affidavit saying that the car would not be driven to work or school, used for towing or hauling or off road, and that I would not engage in any "speed contests".

Assuming you intend to daily drive your "new" T-Bird, you may be better off getting a simpler declared value policy. Ask you insurance agent who they recommend to do the appraisal. Then make sure the appraiser knows how much you paid for the car.
 
#5 ·
I can agree with you on the first two, but not the third, at least on a nice car. No full coverage makes the car a disposable car.

Al
 
#4 ·
+1 on the declared value policy. You don't need an appraisal, you just tell them how much you want to insure it for. You wouldn't get that if something were to happen, but it does help a little. The rate can actually go down a little because it's considered a "pleasure" car.

If you get classic car insurance, you can't drive the car.

Except, on weekends, and in parades, etc. So it would be fully covered, but you can't use it, just look at it in the garage.

Al
 
#6 ·
I went the declared value (agreed upon value) route on my car. When I told the I wanted to insure mine for more than book value my agent said sure ... how much do you want? The question took me off guard, I hadn't really thought about how much coverage I wanted. I asked for 35K and he said no problem. All the underwriter wanted was a picture of the car. The extra coverage costs me about $120 bi-annually or $240 a year (in addition to my original coverage amount.)

I'm going to re-evaluate the 35K figure when my policy is due for renewal in June.
 
#13 ·
It definitely sounds like something you want collector car insurance on. Check with the various collector car insurance companies like Grundy and Hagerty to see what their policies are, but most do allow what they call "occasional use", meaning exactly what you describe; on a nice day, you might feel like taking that car to work for the day, and as long as you aren't doing that every day, it is fine, and it would be covered. They may have a mileage limit like 3K miles per year or something like that, but again, as long as you aren't using the car every day, that shouldn't be a problem.

As for keeping regular collision coverage on an older daily driven vehicle, just remember that if insurance weren't a losing proposition, insurance companies would not still be around. The nature of the business is that in the long run, you are going to pay more in premium than you are going to collect in claims. If you can afford to replace the asset without the insurance, then you are better off not having the insurance and saving the premium.
 
#14 ·
Makes sense
Here in Michigan its horrendous pay out the ass for plpd and it covers nothing and if you don't carry it at least in Michigan the s.o.s checks in on all insurances and will cancel your plate asap if the policy has lapsed .

Plpd is 170 month for me for this car anyhow .I may drive 10 times a month a few of then 10 times may be to the store only .
Full coverage is easily double that for me .
Not cause of any record not cause of my age 37'
Cause it's Michigan and teen drivers and detroit fools wrecking stealing cars and costing everyone in the end . The insurance companys are in bed wit the state of Michigan to collect extra premiums to take home a bonus check to they're family's

This is fairly new no ins canceled tags
policy in Michigan but It beats killing someone in a crash and paying for the rest you life .
 
#15 ·
Mandatory liability insurance is required in all but a few states. Here in NJ if you get caught driving without insurance, it is a mandatory loss of license for a year, and if you get into a crash with no insurance and someone is injured (even if that someone is yourself), it is mandatory at least one year and up to 5 years in jail!
 
#16 · (Edited)
Tennessee checks versus your tags, and if you have a vehicle tagged, they want it insured.

They will pull the tags first; physically come and get them, then your license, if you get caught driving with no tags.

Dinking around swapping tags is a felony, lol.

I accidently swapped the tags on lazarus and the red cougar, and the next time I got pulled over, Mr. State Trooper was about to take me to jail. :)

I luckily had both registrations in my wallet, and handed him that one, and said "Is this the car the plate comes back to?"

He took both registrations, and insurance cards, and didn't write me a ticket.

But he drove by as I was swapping them out that evening, lol.

I'm very happy they're that way; it keeps some of the real idiots off the road. :)
 
#18 ·
One more thought - there's a lot of discussion here about 'what happens to my tbird if I get into an accident' but what about the scenario where you are at fault and damage someone else's vehicle/property/children/etc?

If any of you have assets (like a business or a house), the last thing you want to have happen is someone ruining YOUR life because you accidentally looked at your stereo and rear ended a car carrying someone's lambo, a car carrying their stradivarius, or send their kid to the hospital.

Bare minimum coverage (ex: $15K person / $30K per accident) isn't exactly going to cover much more than an emergency visit AND/or an italian bumper cover. Sure, the victim probably has their own insurance but where do you think that company is going to recoup their losses? Out of your hide.

While a discussion about how to save a few $/yr and get your precious tbird replaced is nice and all but you really should consider insurance to protect the rest of your assets (if you have them). I'd hate to have ownership of my house threatened because of one mistake. IMO, extra $$ spent on the premium to bump up the liability coverage is more valuable than $$ spent bumping up coverage on a $2K/$5K/$15K car to "declared value".


-g
 
#20 ·
Except that when you are young and a new driver, the cost for that coverage is usually extremely high, and rightly so because they are far more likely to have a claim. I remember when I was 18 my parents bought me a 2 year old Mercury Sable to commute to college. I think at the time they paid like $14K for the car, and the collision coverage on the car was $4K/year, so insuring that car is basically saying "I fully expect to total this thing out within the next few years."
 
#25 ·
I have this dashcam in my DD or a similar one (a VIOFO in my Prius). Perhaps this is more of an issue in a hybrid car but I have found multiple times that if I accidentally turn the car on/off quickly and interrupt the dashcam during its boot cycle, it will corrupt its firmware; this often happens if I parallel park, decide i need to adjust my position, so I turn the car on/off again to quickly move things.

When booting, the new corrupted cam will make the necessary tones like it's booting correctly but when you take a peak on the screen, you'll see that it's goofy looking and it's definitely not recording.

I checked one time and this happened 2-3 weeks ago (from the timestamp on the file) before I caught it. The fix is easy (you just drop a new firmware file onto the SD card) but kind of annoying.

My recommendation is don't just trust the cameras are doing what they supposed to do: check up on them every few weeks just to be safe.

-g

PS. I live in SF -- one of the capitols of smash and grab b/c our BS DA doesn't prosecute petty criminals. I have mine mounted just in front of the mirror and while i was worried at first, I haven't had any issues (knock on wood). I suspect that they just dont bother with such a worthless item. When you pass some of their fences on the street (like in the mission hawking their wares), I haven't seen ANY dashcams on their rugs.
 
#22 ·
In a lot of areas, those cameras would be vulnerable to "smash and grab" thieves.

Al
 
#23 ·
I wish the cameras were more obvious. The rear cam is somewhat visible to tailgaters. They often back way off once they figure out what it is. For some reason, younger drivers spot the cam at a much higher rate than older drivers. I am more concerned with the hit-and-run than the smash-and-grab. It takes seconds to remove the cams.
 
#24 ·
Well.
When I looked into it in Michigan they said that it can't be close to stock exterior , it has to be 100% stock exterior..interior or engine didn't matter and and I was restricted to 3 or 4 months of hood weather driving only..was restricted on roads in spring and winter and then it also could have gotten collector plates that only had to be renewed like every 5 years or something and was dirt cheap to due so.
 
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