Just some misc. opinions from my experience with classic car insurance:
-Locked Garage: If you have a claim (or someone in your geographical area has
a claim), agencies sometimes send an adjuster around to verify that a locked
garage exists. Better have sufficient locked garage space for each car
insured. Urban areas carefully scrutinized.
-Claims outside of the policy: If you have a claim for any reason and you
cannot prove it was within the specific use limits of the policy: no pay. (Car
vandalized at home.. not locked up... no pay; Car hit in supermarket parking
lot... no pay) Actual coverage is very limited and strictly enforced.
-Friend had 10 cars insured with a national firm. (Additional cars were free
after coverage of the three most expensive ones.) Won a regional club
autocross; got his picture (with the car) on the newsletter cover. Two weeks
later, the company canceled his policy on all 10 cars for participating in a
"contest involving speed". Appealed to no avail.
-Mileage... never had a company try to verify that a customer was within
mileage limitations.... found this rather curious. Guess if the car was 1000
miles from home on a 2000 mile policy....
Overall, I find insurance to be a legalized form of organized crime but a
necessary evil in our modern litigious society. However, if you examine a
"classics" policy to see under what set of circumstances it would actually pay
off, you might this type of coverage a waste of money for many "classics". That
Aston Martin DB5, on the other hand....
Bill Elliott
Lake Mills, WI
TR6 and other "cheap" classics
|