Insurance

[ray944]

Hi everyone - happy new year !
I have a question - can anyone recommend a sensible Insurance company / broker ?, as ive had some ridiculous quotes - one which was £9999.95 !!
My car is Tr7 V8 4.6. running carb not efi - was built by myself (im retired motor engineer) using factory Tr8 subframe - SD 1 4pot calipers with solid discs, uprated 1" lowered springs MGF 15 alloys, 3.08 Diff etc - Im sure im not the only one running this kind of set up so why the crazy quotes ??
Any help / advice much appreciated !

Ray

[Maxwell]

Ray - My TR7\V8 is with Carole Nash.....

Maxwell

[supercass]

£9999.95 is what I would refer to as a POP. P... off price. Some companies don't want to insure you but don't want to be seen to turn down business. How have you obtained your quotes, on line, via a specialist broker or both? With modded cars it is often a case of persevering with specialist brokers or by recommendation. Lots of people for example fit strut bars to rattly old convertibles for no other reason than to improve the comfort and nvh levels yet some insurers will regard this as a suspension modification and increase the premium as the car is thus modified. supercass

[busheytrader]

Hi Ray,

It doesn't sound like you've made contact with a classic Triumph specialist. I've been insured with Classicline for my 7V8 for more years than I care to remember. I pay around £130 a year limited mileage. Once you go above 7,500 miles a year it starts to become expensive.

The spec of my car as below. Have a look at the insurance ads in Practical Classics if you haven't already tried them.

Cheers,

Adam

[saabfast]

Do you use the car as a daily driver? It sounds as if you have gone for normal insurance rather than classic car insurance. I also insure through Classic Line, about £90 pa for 3000 miles with agreed value. You normally need another car to have classic insurance.

[spanner]

We use Graham Sykes from Exeter for a Tr7 and recently acquired V8 conversion. We used them for several kit cars over the years and have found them excellent to deal with. They are maybe not the cheapest but seem fair and if you have any special requirements they contact the under writers. Fortunately we have never had to claim but we did use their break down service once and had a newly purchased kit car recovered from the Midlands when the gear lever sheared off.
Hope that helps

[ray944]

Hi again
Appreciate your comments - Ive been building / restoring /modifying classic cars for 35 years and never had this much trouble - have tried most of the "specialist" insurers with wildly varying prices even from Triumph specialists so the search continues !
Ray.

[prackers]

I use Heritage, on a collectors policy. Two years ago I got a quote from my then regular insurer on a Subaru Impreza and they quoted £800+, I spent three days on the internet looking for a better deal and Heritrage quoted me £630 for my 3.2 Brera, Subaru, Westfield (modified @ 270bhp), Honda Blackbird, Fiat X/19 and Lexus V8 TR7 (TR7 and X/19 on agreed value). This was the only company that would cover classic cars, bikes and kit cars on the same policy (that I found) and it also was the cheapest by a fair margin. I do pay the first £500 on any claim and do declare the mileage, not a problem for me as I only do about 4k a year in total. It pays to shop around, a couple of friends tried Heritage after I told them, one found them cheaper the other didn't.

[FI Spyder]

Nothing to suggest as a specific of course (not in the UK) but an interesting observation (perhaps). Here in B.C., Canada, we have a provincial insurer (the government) were we have mandatory basic coverage and then pick and chose our level of greater coverage or we can go with private coverage for the "greater coverage". They also have specific plates and (lower) insurance for specific classifications like Vintage, Hot Rod and Classic vehicles. Or these latter ones can be covered by a private company called Hagerty (also available in the States). With only three options or some combination of them it makes insurance hunting pretty easy. Prices tend not to vary very much with ICBC claims centres all over the place, even in small towns, that is usually the option people go with. With Classic cars, etc. they used to have an additional agreed value set at $5 per $1,000 value and you set the value and pay the extra premium. They did away with that and now you get a professional appraiser look at your car for about $250 or as low as about $180 - $200 for club members every 5 years or so depending on work you have done or to bring it up to date if the market changes much (like it did in the last few years with British cars). Makes getting insurance pretty easy and you aren't going to get ripped off if you get the wrong company.