Can anyone explain to me why most insurance companies wack up the premium so much for mods when it would be cheaper to insure the next model up?

For example:

Re-mapping my WRX03 to increase power by upto 25% increases my premium by £480 pa.

whereas just changing to an Sti cost nothing?

Does the insurance reasoning fall down to

• you're engine is more likely to blow up and you'll be claiming to have it repaired or
• you're a generally more likely to crash or kill someone as a result of the mods.

Lets face it, I can't see it being the second bullet point as an Sti would be just as dangerous as a modded WRX PPP for example.....

Comments appreciated
Frank

 

isn't it based on statistics?

people who mod their cars - and the biggest group are boy racers - can often tend to drive a lot faster inappropriately and so have more accidents as a result....

That means the respectable scooby driver in search of some easy BHP is buggered by the 17 yr old in his Nova after an extra 2 BHP from an exhaust or something....

An older driver will look on the power increase as you are - a choice between moving to the next model or keeping the current car......

 

yes, I can see that point but its such a crap way of doing it.

I've already declared mods which are obvious but and very tempted to go down the chipping route without saying anything to Mr insurance. If I crashed my car or had a mutliple vehicle accident is someone really going to plug a computer into my car and determine if its been modified??

Lets face it, if I blow the engine up, thats going to be my problem and i'll have to pay for that repair myself.

 

yeah, it is crap....but not something that you can easily get away from.....

 

hi mate if you blow you engine up you cant claim on your insurance ( unless you have a warranty)

 

Would be very wary of chipping your car and not declaring it. A chip is an EEPROM reprogramme (Which is apparently undetectable!!!) and each EEPROM has a different read back code associated with it - This is to do with how many bits of information were sent to it and is usually just a counter. It would be difficult to write a new programme which when in bit form downloads to your EEPROM giving exactly the same readback code as standard.

If you were an insurance company and someone crashed a car which appeared standard you plug in your computer for lets say 30 seconds, read back a wrong code - It has been upgraded from standard and the insurance company saves the money from your pay out.

I certainly wouldnt do it!!!!

 

ok, fair point but how many cases have you heard of this happening?

Is it part of standard procedure to check your car's ECU mapping?

Consider this:
How do they know that your original ECU had become faulty and with the car falling out of warranty you had decided to have it repair for a cheaper alternative manufacturers chip ?????

How about in the scenario were you had bought the car off someone and they never told you it had been chipped. You might have an accident to be told by the insurance company that it had been modified in that respect.

 

I think most insurance companies would not check but the smaller ones who will try anything to not pay out may very well. When you get insurance they ask if anything has been altered from manufacturers specification - When you say no it is legally binding - It is your job, not the insurers to prove this is the case.

I have heard stories of insurance companies stripping engines and checking cylinder bore sizes - How far true this is, is anyones guess.