Gap insurance

[Anon]

Do people bother with this for their new Ariel? given that they don't generally depreciate it feels a little surplus to requirements.

[phil4]

I haven’t on either atom or Nomad.

With so few insurance companies dealing with the cars I’m not sure many Gap firms would.

Also, as you say, the depreciation historically has been so low, it’s barely pay out anything.


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[Anon]

Thanks Phil this is what I thought but good to check my thinking.

Do you tend to tell the insurance company when you upgrade your car with the new cost of it? For instance I will be adding a load of bits to mine, spending a few ££, increasing the value of it so it would make sense to tell them but I am sure they will increase my premium.

[Karl V]

I haven't declared all my upgrades such as upgrading rear brakes, fitting under body protection, upgrading from Bilstein to Fox suspension etc. during a policy cycle. I did declare the SC upgrade immediately though as this changed the 'model' from a Nomad 235 to a Nomad 300.

My reasoning is that these bits (SC aside) are not mods as such, but options that you could find on any car leaving the factory 'as standard'.

What I do do though is review the value of the car on each policy renewal; which saves from the dreaded 'admin fee' of £60 (or whatever) mid-policy.

There was a semi-discussion about this here, including "who decides what the car is worth at claim time?".

Mixed opinions here, but interesting nonetheless.

[Hedge]

Without declaring the mods you run the risk of them not paying out in the event of a claim. What you defo won’t get without declaring is pay out for those bits you didn’t declare, obviously. So if your 60k Nomad/ Atom has 5k’s worth of mods you’ve decided aren’t “worth” declaring for whatever reason then you get reimbursed for market value for the declared spec of your car. And, yes, by declaring them you’ll get charged more, probably -though it won’t be much in the grand scheme of things.

In my experience, many insurance companies/ Syndicates try to avoid paying out what/ where they can. Policyholders, generally, tend not to really bother with small print until such time they need to, ie, when they claim. And that’s coming from someone who works in Lloyd’s - albeit not in Personal Lines business.

Cheers,
Hedge

[Karl V]

For me, the main point of the discussion (certainly in the other thread) was the word 'mods' V 'options'.

I still maintain that no insurance company really knows what 'options' are on a car - and I don't mean Ariels specifically. My daily is a 2019 plate BMW M340i, valued at £37.45. The insurance company don't know (or maybe even care) if the extra 45p is because it has the fancy rear view camera thing. But like I say, that is probably off topic for this thread and Gap insurance.

Cue [mention]phil4[/mention] and his spreadsheet ;-)

I've just decided that I will declare any 'increases in value' at renewal time and not mid-policy - and not bother with gap insurance. That was my main point.

[phil4]

I think Hedge is sorta right... not just because he works in insurance, but my experience of claims and the like has been that every insurer tries their best to wriggle out of/reduce claims.

I'm not saying for one second you need to declare absolutely everything every time, but if you're working with an insurer like MSM, REIS etc, where they ask for a lot of paperwork (and photos), in my view it's worth including in there a list of all the bits fitted.

I say this, as it's mitigating a little (no always solving it, but reducing chances of it). Take an bog standard Nomad - base price £36,538 on the road. Now add in all the basics (painted bonnet, windscreen), some of the more desirable, and even without a supercharger you can spec it up over £66,000... pop the supercharger in and it's over £70K.

What I'm trying to mitigate is the insurer saying they agreed to only insure the based machine, and leaving me with £30-35K of uninsured options.

I do appreciate almost every insurer asks you for the price of your vehicle, and in my experience this has very little bearing on the payout, since unless that's an "agreed value policy", they pay the going market rate. As such, which I'll always state that, I won't rely on it alone to help me on the above... hence a boring spreadsheet/list - the reality is it's pretty much just a list of the items from the price list (no, no prices).

Does the above guarantee the problem goes away? No, defo not. It's more me doing a bit to try and help/reduce a problem I could do without if it comes to it.

[Anon]

You have me curious about this spreadsheet, is it a list of your spec with prices you share with the insurance company? My insurance company (classicLine) only asked for the total cost of the car/or rather value of the car. In an event of a catastrophic claim i.e. a write off, I would expect the insurance company to cough up on that total price. Is this correct or am I over simplifying it? I understand I don't need gap insurance, but when my car goes back to Ariel to have some bits fitted this will increase the cost of the car somewhat by about £7k so I will tell the insurance company that the price of the car has increased. If I don't do this, then I would (logically) see this is uninsured because I haven't declared it to them.

I will call them to validate this thinking as you say Phil, it's about giving yourself an easy life if things goes south and doing the right thing. Lets just hope none of us will ever be in this position in the first place.

[phil4]

You have me curious about this spreadsheet, is it a list of your spec with prices you share with the insurance company?

Hi Simon, no, no prices, just the items from the spec. I'd be happy to share more information if they wanted it, but I wanted them to at least be aware that the car had other bits on.

My insurance company (classicLine) only asked for the total cost of the car/or rather value of the car. In an event of a catastrophic claim i.e. a write off, I would expect the insurance company to cough up on that total price. Is this correct or am I over simplifying it?

I'm not sure you're oversimplifying, just being too trusting. In my experience the value you state allows them to decide risk, and assign a premium. However on claim, that number seems to go out of the window and they'll find out what the market value of the vehicle is and pay that. As such, if you may be too trusting to expect them to pay that.

I understand I don't need gap insurance, but when my car goes back to Ariel to have some bits fitted this will increase the cost of the car somewhat by about £7k so I will tell the insurance company that the price of the car has increased. If I don't do this, then I would (logically) see this is uninsured because I haven't declared it to them.

It's good that you tell them the increase in the car value, also good to tell them if you increase performance (eg. by adding more bhp). It's your call on whether you list all the parts added, but in my eyes it all helps you get the right amount if something goes wrong.

I will call them to validate this thinking as you say Phil, it's about giving yourself an easy life if things goes south and doing the right thing. Lets just hope none of us will ever be in this position in the first place.

It's just my thinking, you're doing the right thing by discussing it with them.