Hi all!

I work for an insurance company and just thought if anyone has any insurance questions just drop me a line, i see alot of people on here either giving the wrong advice or their own opinon on how insurance works.

I have worked for over 3 yrs in insurance and i should be able to answer most questions, if not i know plenty of specialists in my office that will know.

Give me a buzz if you need help

Edited 14 August, 200620 yr by tommyriis

if i dont declare having a sports backbox or other modd fitted, how does the insurance company come to know and void my policy?

First of all it depends on your policy cover? and what type of claim occurs?

If your TPFT and have an accident the insurance company wont even look at your car as they have no financial interest with your car as they will only cover the third party vehicle, so if you have mods you will be fine!

However insurance companies look at mods in a few different ways. In my experience the insurance company is looking for ANY excuse to void your policy so they dont have to pay out, because in your legal agreement you said there were no mods (which 99% of people do)!!!

If you have TPFT and your car is stolen and then found and you make a claim then your in trouble! They will send out an insurance assesor who will look at the car and spot your mods in seconds report back to the insurance company what he sees and in some way shape or form your fuckd.

Lets say your comp cover, in all cases of claims that you may make, be it accidents or theft damage, the insurance company will inspect your vehicle before authorising repairs and again as soon as they see your mods again your fuckd.

The possible reactions....

1) They may just void your claim

2) They will put your XS up to a stupid amount like £500 or if your a young driver with an already hefty xs they will add £500 to it which YOU will have to pay towards that claim

3) Or if you motor is written off they will reduce the pay out to up to 25%

Therefore mods will be found and will effect your policy! Just dont claim unless you have to, you know what to do before the assesor knocks at your door!!

Hope that helps

I'm under 25 and want to drive other cars under 3rd party fire and theift. what companys insurance me if i take out a fully comp insurance on my car

Whats Up, If i declare my sound system would my fully comp insurace go up or would they just increase my excess...my system is worth 600£ so is it worth getting it declared...and also i have dynamatted my car but i dont think this will affect the insurace in anyway...and does modifictions like a spoiler, grille or alloys need be declared? or will they fuck me up if i have a crash and it aint?

thanks

Edited 12 August, 200620 yr by X1_NBP

what if u dont tell them about minor modds, such as clear indicators, painted brake drums, decals, gear knobs, aerials...etc?

hedgehogharvey

When you drive other cars the cover will be TPO, as it covers you for driving it on a temp basis so dont worry about the fire and theft bit!

However your under 25 so in all you have little chance of having DOC on your policy.

DOC stands for Driving of Other Cars extension, 99% if not 100% of all insurance companies will not add this endorsement onto your policy untill you are over 25 its just too risky for them to allow this, so even if you get a comp policy you wont get your DOC till your 25 bud.

Plus the other day if found out something that might be of interest to you!!! You know when people say "Yeah i have comp cover i can drive any car i like and be covered" thats absolute shit because if you are luky enough to have DOC being over 25 that is, you are only able to drive vehicles which are equal to or less than the value of YOUR vehicle which YOU insure, anything above that value and your not covered.

So no driving your Mates Bently LOL

Edited 14 August, 200620 yr by tommyriis

X1_NBP

Safe

Firstly with regard to exterior mods have a butchers at my reply above about mods, that covers that part of your question!

In performance Audio terms, dunno how old you are but some companies wont insure you, but you may be able to add it to your existing policy. And the insurance company can choose whether or not it adds a special extra xs on top of your already large XS or just make you pay a higher premium.

However if you are under 25 your XS is gonna be fat on a comp policy anyway, however you pay a reduced XS when subject to a theft claim, their way of saying "youve been fucked over by some thieving little nice person so we wont hurt your wallet too much" if you know what I'm saying?

So lets say your XS for a theft claim is £100

I dont know who you are insured with but all insurance companies have what is known as an audio limit for claims on their policies, your looking at around a £250 limit which when you think about it really it isnt worth claiming for your £600 system when you have to pay the first 100 and you only have cover up to £250 leaving you with £150 and your No claims bonus affected.

My advice is check your Audio limit on your policy it may be more, but i assume it isnt 600 quid and if you add up the total added cost of declaring the system and then in the unfortunate event of having to make a claim it really isnt worth adding.

Hope that helps

Edited 14 August, 200620 yr by tommyriis

desta

Wouldnt really worry about that they are not significant enough to be able to void your policy

and in the unlikely event they do moan which i know they wont act dumb and say they were already on there but al in all it should be fine!

Hi tommy I wonder if you could give me some advice!

I'm going to university in Birmingham in september, by which time I will be 19 and have had a clean license for a year with 0 NCB. I've been looking at online quotes for my polo (mk3 CL) this morning and my eyes have fallen out of my head! If I do a quote for on the street at my parents house (edge of village) I get around £950 TPFT (on Tesco just for comparison purposes). The same identical quote but on the street in Birmingham (terraced street) Tesco quote me £2200 TPFT! I don't see how they can more than double the quote like that, considering I put the estimated value at £1000 (the minimum they accept). How can they add more than the vehicles value to it just for changing location? They won't pay me anywhere near £1000 anyway if it did get stolen I'm sure (it's actually worth more like £400 :()

So the next thing is how to reduce that, I'm wondering if fitting an immobiliser would help significantly? Would a good quality immobiliser reduce my premiums by significantly more than the immobiliser itself cost?

I don't know of any other way to reduce it, at the moment I'm a named driver on my mums policy but I can hardly do that when I'm living in Bham and her 60 miles away! Can you make any suggestions?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Ray

PS the best quote I've got so far online aside from those above is £1600 from elephant/admiral

Edited 15 August, 200620 yr by Ray2k

Hmm I've just tried adding my mum and dad (both with centuries of completely clean driving) as named drivers (on my policy) and on Elephant it went down from £1696 to £1200.10! Is that ok considering it's likely they'll never drive the car and live 60 miles away?

Safe

Funnily enough i live just outside of Birmingham and to be honest i dont blame any insurance company for bumping up your claim Birmingham is a hot spot for thieving rats.

From the looks of all the quotes you have had there is a common trend here and there is no way your really going to be able to reduce the premium significantly.

With regard to the Immobilisor when you get an online quote just add to the details that there is one fitted you will then see how much financially an addition of a immobilisior changes the quote.

I'm 22 i have a 2001 6n2 my dad is the main driver I'm named driver on a comp policy and it costs £304 for the year, I'm at uni in north London i have the car registered to my home address in Solihull, just reg it to your home address its not like they will know, just say you were visiting friends at the time the incident occured ie a theft or malicious damage claim, because if your TPFT and have a smash in birmingham your insurance co wont have anything to do with your car its your problem.

Really cant see why the quotes are so high, chill it for a few days as i notived that when i searched loads of quotes in one day they were all pretty high, left it for a few days and it wasnt so bad

Hope that helps

Thats fine they really dont care if the named drivers ever drive the car, put anyone on the more the merrier lol

I live in Birmingham and I have to agree with tommyriis: Birmingham is an expensive place for insurance. When I moved from Leicester it leapt up significantly. I pay £442 for fully comp on a mk4 valver with 8(EIGHT!!) years NCB and I'm 31. And that was with a LOT of shopping around. And I have no mods. (Yet).

Just out of interest, which uni?

Thanks for the replies - I was expecting it to increase just not by that much! I'm assuming that it's because of the greater risk of theft, if so how can they justifiably increase the premium by more than the value of the car?

I'm going to University of Birmingham (Computer Science) and living in Edgbaston.

Looks like £1200.10 from Elephant is the best I can get online at the moment, but I'll phone around too closer to the time (don't need it until end of September). I'm not sure about having it registered to my mum at this address, sure it would be so much cheaper (it cost around £600 for the last year when I was 18 and had had a license for 1 month) but worried that it'll be parked there every night. I've heard many things about them looking for any excuse to void, which is absolutely not an option for me so I'm cautious to do that.

Well I've been busy with the quote engines again, now on Elephant I've got my parents address as the home address but it being kept overnight in birmingham, with both parents as named drivers and my occupation 'student living away from home' and they quote £1055. The best I could get with it all at my parents house was just under £700. I don't think it's worth the risk for £350... £1055 is around the price I was expecting so I'll probably do it that way, after shopping around properly closer to the time.

I'm 22 i have a 2001 6n2 my dad is the main driver I'm named driver on a comp policy and it costs £304 for the year, I'm at uni in north London i have the car registered to my home address in Solihull, just reg it to your home address its not like they will know, just say you were visiting friends at the time the incident occured ie a theft or malicious damage claim, because if your TPFT and have a smash in birmingham your insurance co wont have anything to do with your car its your problem.

I guess this doesn't apply to students, but I heard they can find you lived there from things like electoral roll and council tax. Is this true?

as a student i dont get council tax and i live in rented accomodation, the insurance company really wouldnt check unless they are suspicious

hi, I'm 18 and i passed my test over a year ago now but iv only been driving for about 10 months I'm planing on buying a new car with a bit more power, say a 1.4 and was woundering would it be cheaper to start a new policy, or simply switch my current policy as I'm now old enough to pay monthly....

also should i mention internal mods such as bucket seats and window tints???

thnx for your time

Hey

Just wanted to ask basically my mum's haad her licence for 6 years now and she has had 2 accidents but none were her fault and the other company paid out.....

But If I wanted to go on as a named driver on a policy wiv her they ask if shes had any accidents convictions...

One company said it was fine If it wasn't her fault another said no we must still mention it, but when they do it makes the premium shoot up....

What do you reckon.

Thanks

Mak

Hey mate, i have been looking at buying a car and if its already been modded you kinda have to take their word for some of it. Eg one guy claimed that it had been porrted and polished, but he had done it himself so he didnt have the receipts for the work.. Thats all good and well, but if you bought a car that had been ported and polished but you didnt know and so couldnt declare it, would your policy be voided in the event of a crash claim?

hi mate...this is probably blatantly obvious but i've had about 60 different answers from different forums about this, but what entitles me to a years NCB?? - obviously having no accidents helps :-D but i held a policy with tesco for about 4 months then cancelled this and switched to adrian flux for 8 months until i sold my car...am i entitled to a years NCB if i get written conformation from both insurance companies? or does it have to be on the same policy?

cheers bud :-D

Not 100% sure get hold of Adrian flux and they will be able to give you a definitive answer. At the end of the day it will be at their discretion

ignorance is bliss if it is not majorly visible mod it should be ok

Ello matey, in regards to lowering of vehicles. how low can you go, and each time you go lower does the insurance go up?

is this classed as a visual modification or a performance mod as it helps you corner faster?

but it is a security feature aswell as it doesn't make u roll the car at 20mph round a bend!