It's that time of year, sharing my experiences

[ITSt]

Hi Folks, and yes, yet another thread on shopping around for insurance, but it will add to the excellent "database" that this club is now building on this subject.

It's renewal time, and for the last two years I've been with MCE, mainly due to me being lazy if I'm honest, but this year it's a concerted effort to find the following, and this has certainly been interesting so far

1996 R33 GTR
Approx 400bhp at the fly (estimate)
All mods/rebuild declared, and I mean all, including boost pressure !
No more than £500 excess
like for like replacement
Garaged
Toad
I have a certified 11 years NCB
No points etc.
Old git (over 45)
Wife on as second driver (even older )
10000 miles ......

...... and the cruncher ...... I want an agreed value of at least £20K.

Swinton ..... will not quote ..... too heavily modified so much for their adverts.

A-Plan, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off, but did quote me on the rest, and excellent service too.

MCE, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off, but did re-quote me on the rest, and not too bad a service.

Sky Insurance, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off (even stated that it would be a maximum £15K today), but did quote me on the rest, and again excellent service.

HIC Insurance, now here was a revalation, a system where you can dial your telephone number in and they will call you back, and it worked . The only company so far that will do an agreed value, but I have to wait until tomorrow for the quote, but I was told it would be about £200 more than a "normal" quote. Excellent service on the phone and very knowledgable, I was even asked what turbos I was running now (GT2860R's by the way).

In terms of cost I was a bit dissapointed to be honest, or a lot of people on here don't tell the insurance companies the full truth about their cars and mod status every one bar HIC were within £25 of each other with the average being about £550.

Tomorrow it will be Lifesure, Mayfair, Adrian Flux (although I had a bad experience with them 2 years ago) and Keith Michaels, but I already know most will not entertain an agreed value.

In terms of customer satisfaction, all were very good on the phone to be honest, and knew exactly what they were talking about (except Swinton of course ).

So, until the next installment .....

[DUNCAN GT-R]

Great write up.
I've been with A-Plan for 4 years now. I find them very competative and easy to talk to on the phone.
Can't remember exactly, but i pay around £450 a year fully comp.(and i'm also an old git....40)

[s2gtr]

MCE, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off, but did re-quote me on the rest, and not too bad a service.

Wait till you have to make a claim with them

Then I had my insurance cancelled mid term because the insurer decided they would not cover the mod's any longer

I then had to involve the financial ombudsman to get a refund for the remainder of the policy.

Beware!

Dave

[ITSt]

Originally Posted by s2gtr

Wait till you have to make a claim with them

Then I had my insurance cancelled mid term because the insurer decided they would not cover the mod's any longer

I then had to involve the financial ombudsman to get a refund for the remainder of the policy.

Beware!

Dave

That's one of the reasons that I am not being lazy this year, I've seen a number of posts on other car forums about MCE and that kicked me into action to do the rounds. Come to think about it, they have not got back to me this morning as they promised

[ITSt]

HIC have now got back to me, and I must say their service is superb. Good and precise on the phone and then 2 hours later as promised an email containing PDF files of the quote and policy for review, excellent service

But, you do pay for the agreed value Over £300 more expensive than the "run of the mill" policies, but everything including the kitchen sink thrown in ...... like for like, low excesses, courtesy car, free legal aid, EU cover, etc. etc.

So how much extra would you pay for piece of mind and getting your money back on a car ?

Having issues with Keith Micheals at the moment, they refused to quote this morning because they could not match my "best" quote, I've asked them to quote anyway, a bit lazy if you ask me, not exactly selling themselves.

[Robbie 733]

You could try Greenlight, no good for me as agreed value only up to £20,000.00

Or Competition Car Insurance, just remember to tell them how many trackdays you do throughout the year (the more the merrier). They don't offer an agreed value, but 'like for like' in the event of a claim.

Happy hunting.

[moleman]

Originally Posted by Robbie 733

You could try Greenlight, no good for me as agreed value only up to £20,000.00

£30k mate.

[Robbie 733]

I knew that ....... just testing

[ITSt]

Hi Folks

An update on the hunt :

Swinton ..... will not quote ..... too heavily modified I don't think so, so much for their adverts.

A-Plan, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off, but did quote me on the rest, and excellent service too, within 10% of the cheapest quote.

MCE, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off, but did re-quote me on the rest, still waiting for the quote.

Sky Insurance, confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off (even stated that it would be a maximum £15K today), but did quote me on the rest, and again excellent service, cheapest quote so far, and with everything included like EU cover, legal fees etc. etc.

HIC Insurance, Service is superb, agreed value policy. Good and precise on the phone and then 2 hours later as promised an email containing PDF files of the quote and policy for review, excellent service, agreed value policy, but almost £300 above cheapest "normal" quote.

Greenlight, will not give me an agreed value policy as they have already decided that the value of my car is way below what I want so have stated that they will only go with market value at time of write-off, in other words a normal policy, and £150 dearer than the cheapest quote so far.

Keith Micheals Oh dear, not impressed at their customer intamacy they refused to give me a quote because they said they could not match my "best" quote so far, I asked them to quote anyway and I am still waiting, a bit lazy if you ask me, not exactly selling themselves.

So far it is between Sky and A-Plan for a normal insurance, and HIC for the agreed value policy.

[V1H]

i take it most of those are brokers, did you also ask who the actual insurer are? may be worth mentioning.

good info btw

[ITSt]

Small update:

MCE, finally got my renewal quote through the post and it matched almost everyone else, then yesterday while I was on holiday I got a call from them with a "new" quote of £100 cheaper than my cheapest so far Just phoned them up to discover they have not taken into account any of my new mods or updates (actually any mod) and have used my old policy as a basis So much for telling them last week about the mods

I've to ring them back this afternoon.

Keith Micheals, they have not bothered getting back to me at all, so they are now off the list, very poor customer service.

[TURBO_T]

ive been with keith micheals for last 2 years but was not impressed one bit at there customer service

when i had my evo nicked this year ,mainly when waitin for the payment for the car to be sent to me i had 3 ppl tell me 3 diff things and 1 tbh be very rude to me tellin me i dont no what im talkin about and put the fone down on me then next day once i spoke 2 person i norm do he said what i was tellin them was right and whoever i spoke 2 day before was wrong !

but i will still try them this year again on the skyline i think u just need 2 speak to the right person mate

[cong]

ive been with keith micheals for 3 years now and i can fault there customer service(2 years with my scooby and 1 year with my gtr33), if you go on scoobynet theres thousands of satisfied customers heance why i have stuck with them and i have had a claim with them. call them and speak to a guy called gary moulsan(hopefully he still works there) and tell him cong sent you.

[ITSt]

Hi Folks,

I've decided to stop looking and have just made a decision, to be honest I was getting fed up with continually phoning around and filling out WEB forms, sometimes enough is enough.

I've also given up on the possibility of getting an up-front agreed value policy, far too much hassle, very little interest, and to be honest the strong feeling that the car had to be worth a lot more than £20K to be considered for an "agreed value" policy, so here are some findings:

The "winner" is :

A-Plan, they confirmed that they will not do agreed values, only current market value at time of write off, but excellent service (thanks to Andy) and after a little bit of negotiation the cheapest of all quotes for my circumstances (insurers are MarketStudy).

As for the others:

MCE, been with them for 2 years, but this time they could not get anywhere near the other quotes and were in fact the 2nd highest, by a long way. It took an awful lot of phone calls, lots of repeating of information that I had already told them, and at one stage they gave me a quote based on a non-modified car, so we had to repeat the whole process. Don't think "power" modifications are there speciality anymore. Could not find an agreed value policy for me.

Swinton ..... would not quote ..... too heavily modified I don't think so, so much for their adverts.

Sky Insurance, a very close second, I would recommend giving them a try . They confirmed that they will not do agreed value, only current market value at time of write off (even stated that it would be a maximum £15K today), but did quote me on the rest, and again excellent service (insurers QBE, ex-Ensign).

HIC Insurance, Service is superb, and the only ones who would do an agreed value policy. Good and precise on the phone and then 2 hours later as promised an email containing PDF files of the quote and policy for review, excellent service, agreed value policy, but double the cheapest "normal" quote not including the agreed value extra payment. For this extra payment I would receive a certificate of value.

Greenlight, will not give me an agreed value policy as they have already decided that the value of my car is way below what I want so have stated that they will only go with market value at time of write-off, in other words a normal policy, and £150 dearer than the cheapest quote. Found out their "agreed value" is nothing more than checking up on today's market value of a similar car and then stating that is what I would get if the car is written off. I asked a lot of pointed questions on this.

Keith Micheals not impressed at their customer intamacy, they refused to give me a quote because they said they could not match my "best" quote so far, I asked them to quote anyway and I received absolutely nothing from them, a bit lazy if you ask me, not exactly selling themselves.


I did do a few more but all went very "cold" on hearing that the estimated power of the engine is now 400bhp. It seems that "modified" in the eyes of some insurers or brokers means "body modifications" as when I stated that the car was in factory standard condition in terms of the body, and the modifications were only in terms of the mechanics, there were lots of hums and haws and deep intakes of breath .

So hopefully that is it for the next year. I'm happy with the service and quote from A-Plan which gives me a few more £'s to do the next stage

Maybe next year I'll try again with the agreed value policies.

[KVH1]

Cheers for going to the effort of writing that all up

I've got my fingers crossed for the long awaited purchase of my own R32 next weekend.. got a post-it note covered in potential insurers to get quotes from and having a bit of feedback on each of them makes me feel much less in the dark

- Kev