Insurance Rant

[douglasgdmw]

What a weekend I have had with insurance due to some minor modifications on the Defender.

Decided that I wanted to fit LED head lights/indicators etc so that we could see more than 5 feet in front of us when driving on country roads. Also the LED headlights were an early xmas present from Sandra to me .

Thought it would be an easy discussion with the insurance company as to my mind being able to see further/be seen would have been a good thing and not caused the hassle it has.

Hasting Direct told me that my current underwriter would not insure me with LED head lights so ended up going through all the insurance companies trying to change my insurance.

Found out this weekend:
- A Land Rover manufacturers snorkel implies that you go off road so they will not accept you for their insurance (actually on their exclusion list!!)
- Some companies like a snorkel, so you get an off road policy but travelling more than 6k miles/year means they will not insure you
- Some companies do not mind the modifications however as soon as they see a number of mods, their quote goes up to £2k
- Most companies do not know their specific model of vehicle
- Trying to explain to them what an aftermarket grill is was next on impossible

In the end, went with Adrian Flux (who ironically I changed over from a couple of years ago to save £30). Means I am now paying £235/year more so that I can see where we are going. To add insult Sandra says that Santa does not cover policy changes in his present list

George

[renmure]

Welcome to my world

My Ultima insurer needs to know every modification from "factory standard" despite the fact that even the factory vary the spec of everything including engine, gearbox, brakes, wheels, trim etc depending on what the customer orders at any given time. When I changed the seat covering from alcantara to leather I intended to be a smart ass and phoned to check if that was the sort of info the needed or if it was a bit OTT but yes, that sort of change was "important" so it was my responsibility to let them know immediately, even tho it was physically the same seats. Hey ho. It's almost tempting to call them every time I put new petrol in it. Nothing ever changes the premium tho.

Adrian Flux were the previous insurer and charged me an additional £15 for fitting a removable steering wheel (most of that was the change in policy charge) then reduced my premium at renewal time by nearly £50 after I made a near £30k claim on the policy.

I have an agreed value policy for the Ultima and needed to give an experts opinion of the value. I sent in a full report from the Ultima factory giving their valuation as experts and signed by the MD of Ultima. That got rejected since apparently the factory may have an interest in keeping values high so the advice from the insurer was to submit the same info but not on letter headed paper since the MD of the factory still counted as an expert.

They are all mad.

[kerryxeg]

Did you try NFU? If you have no recent claims they are great. Getting the quote is a long winded process on the phone, but it is well worth it and once you've got 1 car insured the rest is much easier. My mate has a 110 full off-road spec and halted his insurance going to NFU. Caveat is that if you don't fit their low risk profile they will just say no. daily drivers they are just little bit better than the market but with some extra benefits and no added costs for changes. Specialist cars they've been amazingly good in most but not all cases.

[douglasgdmw]

Jim,

Hope you have taken a whole day out to get the Stratos insurance sorted when you pick it up.

Kerry,

Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately I had to rush through the insurance so NFU never came up but will consider them next year.

George

[KevD]

I went with brentacre for a modified van which is getting modified more into a camper ( in slowtime) they've adjusted the mods without extra charge which is great. They do cars and commercials as well