red_dog104

Just declared some mods to my car (full exhaust and HKS air filter) and they have charged me £113.90. Does that sound about right or am I being ripped off?!

gadget kev

sounds good to me

RB5320

you are probably being ripped off but not a lot you can do about it!!!
does a full exhaust (as opposed to only half an exhaust???) and air filter make you more likely to have an accident - no. does it make your car more likely to get stolen - probably not.
thats insurance for you.

Steve

The Crushinator

I was quoted £500 just for a BackBox!

I don't think you're being ripped off!

[Edited by The Crushinator - 10/24/2002 3:55:08 PM]

Boss Hogg

NatWest charged me £85 for a full decat, so that's not too bad

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Listed all my mods to Liverpool and Victoria, including body, lights, decat, filter, and they charged me nothing extra. Good price on the premium too.:
Alcazar

red_dog104

I'm gonna have to try them when I renew. Most places won't touch me though cause my fella is the named driver on my insurance he's only 24 plus the car is a Jap import. Don't do things the easy way!!

dnb

£100 ish is quite good - they wanted £200 from me for a backbox and centre section. (I'm 23, so I have to be careful as I could easily end up with an unisurable car... )

Suresh

I got charged ZERO for declared Ecutek3 custom remap and a de-cat downpipe..

Thank you clogs!

salsa-king

what you tell um for???
you bought the car like it...how did you know it was stainless steal ...the air filter looked like any other you'd seen!!
your new to owning a Scoob..you thought they were all like that!!!!

Phil

melon

Yeh...why even bother insuring it, save a fortune!!!
Can't help thinking that's not the best advice phil
It does get frustrating though...almost like a license to print money for most insurance companies.
Trouble is you ever do need to use the cover, accident theft etc, last thing you want to do is risk invalidating it over £100

just my 2p worth...melon

PS I'm with LV and I can really recommend them, helpful friendly and best of all well priced for decent cover though I do have an unmodded UK turbo....and am 33 years young

red_dog104

Phil

I only told them cause it's getting towards winter and I can just see something happening and I imagine they will turn round and say....I'm sorry you dopey mare, are you a bit thick? Wasn't it obvious that exhaust wasn't standard?! Pleading ignorance wouldn't help I don't think!!!!

The Boy

I'm 24 with a standard MY99 and Tesco Insurance wanted £150 for up to a 15% BHP increase ( This was their starting rate for any performance enhancing mods )

Only wanted a backbox to start with!!!!

Gridlock Mikey

I gotta agree with Phil on this one, Overt mods such as wheels and spoilers etc, fair enough, they make the car more nickable and also at the scene of an accident, they are pretty easy to spot. Downpipes, ECU's, etc are not obvious and indeed unless the inspector was a scooby nut, he probably wouldn't know where to look. They even tried to charge me for Carbon effect dash stuff [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

My experience has been that when you phone any insurance company and mention mods, there is a few minutes of confusion followed by a period on hold followed by."I've had a word with my manager and he said that it will be an extra £x" .If you phone back 10 mins later and get a different person, the same mod described differently will cost more/less rarely the same.

It's a licence for them to think up numbers

How many of you have had to get a tracker fitted recently in order to renew? I got a letter from my insurance Co. last year stating that I would NOT be required to get a tracker for insurance purposes for the time i stayed with them. Guess what, I had to use that letter to renew because they said that they would never have agreed to it!!!
They then tried to ram the premium up because i had the letter. I then just kept phoning up and getting different people (at the same company) to quote me lower and lower premiums. Eventually the premium stabilises and you go with it. £400 lower than the first quote [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]
Given that they tried to make money out of me over and above the call of duty i say **** 'em, play them at thier own game [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

I have got a tracker incidentally, but because I wanted one, not cos some herbert deemed that my car needed one!

Mikey

red_dog104

Yeah, but Mikey, have you seen the size of my exhaust? I would never have got away with it. I'm deffo shopping around when it's time to renew.

Tiggs

couple of years ago my Nissan 200sx was crashed by my wife. This was a nasty bash that put her in hospital for a few days and wrote of both the 200sx (£20k claim) the 4X4 she hit (£25 claim) and £15k of other costs. So the insurance were not happy ppl.

also the police were onto it as they thought she may have been driving badly.

anyway- nissan at the breakers, parked/dumped out in the rain. insurance bloke spent about 3 secs going over the car and buggered off.

the car could have had a jet engine and bill gates sat under the hood playing with the ECU...he didnt see/care about it.

just my story.

T

Baby Blue

My Insurance Co told me that they don’t cover mods, when I rang them to advise of new back box and spoiler. Then explained that they were genuine Subaru optional extras (WRSport BB and UK300 Spoiler) and they Oh… OK then we will note your file but there will be no additional charge on your premium.

Cheers … nice one!! – Dread to think what the renewal premium will be like though!

BB

p.s. Red_Dog – yeah it would be a little difficult to persuade anyone that your exhaust is an OE part, even someone who doesn’t know Scoobs should be able to spot that – from at least 100 paces!!

Dave T-S

One word - FRAUD - remember the declaration you made and didn't bother reading when you signed the proposal

Gridlock Mikey

Dave, FRAUD and what should we call what they do to us when they "invent" the premium hike?

At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a bleedin mask

Mikey

PopeyeP1

on a serious note- why the hell is it fraud??? Totally agree with mike on this one.
When you buy a car thats been modded, are you expected to know exactly what mods its had. For all you know its standard. 80% of ppl aren't mechanically minded.
Also these accessors just look a the car not get a toothpick out. Its in their interests to pay out or word will get around that they're 'not good for business.'
You're only making them richer.

Little Miss WRX

Well, just be prepared for a nullified and invalid insurance claim if you don't declare mods.

You do so entirely at your own risk!!!!!

ADP

sounds about right, tesco by any chance?

yes it is a rip off, but seems to be the going rate

red_dog104

Direct Line actually! They aren't bad overall but it just makes me wince everytime I call them! This car has cost me a fortune!!!

mixit

Anyone got any experience of severe premium hikes after declaring 17" Alloys ? .... I'm worried now, as I haven't told about mine.

red_dog104

Well, would you adam and eve it?!?!?! Liverpool Victoria have told me i'm not eligable for insurance with them on my scooby!!! (Contacted them cause they are supposed to be cheap and not bothered bout modifications) I've got 9 years NCB and been driving 10 years. I have had 2 no fault claims and i've got 3 points but still?! Apparantly i'm too young (29) WTF?!?!?!

[Edited by red_dog104 - 10/29/2002 1:48:44 PM]

Krade

If you have an crash and haven't delcared that the car was Modded coz you bought a car that you thought was standard, they will be rubbing thier hands in glee as they now have a way to get out of paying out becuase you invalidated your insurance.

I cant see many insurers saying "ok as you didnt know the car had non standard mods and an increase of 30bhp from standard we will be happy to pay out £000's to0 cover the crash.

Gridlock Mikey

What about 16 inch non OE wheels, more likely to make you crash are they? Maybe make the car more knickable but if you've had an accident on the way to sainsburys and put a claim in for £700 worth of damage say, I doubt they wouldn't pay. I'd had my car a few months when someone took out the side of my car in the snow and drove off £2,000 worth of damage fixed without batting an eye lid and my car was far from standard.
You pays ya money and takes ya choice i think. Not declaring mods is nowhere near as evil a crime as NOT having any insurance, that I do dissagree with, but having to pay almost 33% more to an insurance company because THEY deem my car to be more nickable, more uncontrollable because of power hikes, more likley to have an accident because of a change of wheel size. We already pay over the odds because theives used to like 'em!

Most of them can't even spell impreza, let alone be able to tell you what a 20% hike in BHP would be. And if i ever get insurance quotes with WRX written on them again, i'll scream. Even after telling them that it's NOT a WRX it's a Turbo 2000 AWD UK spec 50 times. They don't know so why should they be allowed to rob us.

scooby_jim

red-Dog, Direct Line and Tescos are the underwritten by the same company apparently! I have my insurance through Tescos, cheapest by far... When I was poor a few years back and owned a Ford Ka (flame suit on ) and put alloys on it (yes you read that right) they charged me £60 more on my premium so I dread to think what the hike would be if I specced up my standard MY02 WRX!

Jim

speedking

I haven't bought a big rear spoiler (yet) because of Tescos premium increase of £120, and that's with 60% no claims bonus

What I'd like to see is the actuarial evidence that cars with alloys/spoilers/spotlights (insert other visual mod here) are actually more likely to be stolen. I doubt it can be produced.

Calling Rum* Calling Rum*

Krade

Needless to say Im changing from Tesco's at the end of the year,
They lost my Docs (Tracker cert and cat 1 alarm cert)and they quoted me on a uk car instead of an import after I mentioned it about 9 times. Luckily they had to honor the lower quote,£450 less than the import price, but I wont be going with them again, h8 to think what they would charge to make up the lost money from this year. I think Liverpool Vicotia will be getting my call.