Right so on Monday I lowered my car on coilovers and afterwards had a quick look online to see how much I could expect my insurance to go up by (I'm with Directline) and all I could find were threads upon threads of how Directline are strict on no mods for under 25's, I even read of a guy who was 32 that they wouldn't insure because he had a different air filter on his car.

My renewal isn't due till October so I don't want to be driving around with a void insurance for that long and I don't want to ring up my insurers to get a quote because the conversation will be recorded and if a crash were to happen it would look really bad.

I know I should have checked this out BEFORE lowering. Has anyone had a problem with Directline? I haven't looked into it yet but can I leave my insurers before the renewal date in order to switch to someone who allows mods but without losing all of what I've paid (pay yearly).

You have 2 options if you want to be legal:

Remove the coilovers

Cancel and restart your policy with declared mods

It is incredibly unlikely that phoning around insurers for quotations and declaring mods will held against you if you have a claim now with your current insurer, I'd just avoid getting a quote from your current insurer.

could always phone up and ask, if they would actually let you declare them if you got a set, rather than saying you already have them on the car. if they say no then either take them off or cancel it