Dave T-S

This one is making its weekly reappearance.....

Markus
In contract law, an insurance policy is unique in that it is based on utmost good faith - the onus is on the proposer to declare anything material. Modifications are material. If you knowingly withold material facts then you have to suffer any consequences.

Of course, it's only insurers, who are a bunch of robbing ba5tards, so who cares about them.....

Adam
Are you saying you have NEVER filled in a proposal form with Privilege?

Markus

Thanks Dave,
Was just curious on this, basically knew what has been said, ie; don't lie to insurance compaines, aint worth the hassle.

Dave T-S

Sums it up nicely.....

Markus

Was/am with Independant, so you know the score there, I'm now looking for alternative companies to insure the blackbeast.

Now, the blackbeast has a few modifications, so getting insurances is even worse, it being a jap import as well.

What follows is a hypothetical question, as I'd not condone doing this, but I'm interested in others opinions.

So,
I purchase the blackbeast, a jap import, and not knowing a great deal about the standard spec of jap imports, I don't realise that it's modified form factory standard. Thus I just insure it as a jap import, with no mods, as I don't know about the mods.

So, if I have an accident and the insurance assessor looks the car over and has an ounce of snese they may detect non standard parts, which were not declared on the insurance.

Can i play the ignorance card and say that I did not trully know it was modified, as I just saw the car and purchased it? or will the insurance company come back and say that I should have done a little more research on the car to find out if it was standard?

robski

Markus,

you know about the mods so you should declare them. Youve made enough comments about them on this site.

If you do not declare mods that you know are in existance then you have basically committed fraud, and you insurance will never actually come into force. (You sign to say you have declared all relevent facts to the best of your knowledge.)

Its always an issue when you buy a secondhand car, has it been modified? The current owner of my old celica would probably be very surprised to know a few of the bits a bobs that were changed or modified.

robski

polarbearit

Interesting point, I too have a modified import and I explained that I didn't know what was standard and what was not, they told me I could be uninsured even if I didn't know the modification was a modification. So my mods are fairly limited and all declared (Wheels - Seen as like for like replacements as cheaper than originals, exhaust and air filter - cost me a little to add on).

Because I told them I was unsure I had to declare the mods, however if it was a case of buying a car and not knowing about any mods I am not sure what would happen or whether they would know.

Adam M

Robski,

forgot to mention one thing.

I am insured with privilege and have never signed anything with them.

robski

Adam,

youve never signed anything!?

are you sure? normally they send you 2 copies and you sign one and send it back!

has it been a renewal job? I think most direct will contact you to say "here is your renewal" with an assumption that you have no details that you need to tell them about

robski

Markus

robski,
I totally agree with you, I do currently declare all the mods (just ask Rum*).

Your point about me mentioning them on here is interesting, as I guess that this could be used as evidence in a court case by the insurance company.

So,
where to go for a modified jap import, without tracker (don't really want one either) then? tried tesco's and they seem ok. what about others.

help!

robski

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

please all lie to insurance cos.

Then when you have any accident we can void your insurance and not end up paying out more in claims than we collected in premium.

Will do my bonus no end of good

robski

Adam M

have checked with form.

It says to sign both copies, which I havent done, and keep them both if there are no mistakes.

If there is a mistake, send it back and initial change which they will fix, and send you another two forms.

But no, i still have signed, guess I should really.

robski

Adam,

I would sign them if I was you. Dont ask me why though, its just a feeling that it may be better to in the long run.

I would suggest what they are doing is allowing you a "cooling down period" i.e they would expect you to reply if there was something wrong within say 1 month. After this time they may not be happy!

Very interesting approach though, Ive never heard or seen any evidence of long term (longer than 1 month) insurance being granted without a signature.

Just had a thought though, if you dealt with privaledge over the phone, they may keep the phone record of you declaring any mods in reponse to the question of "has the car been modified in any way".

Either way, Im sure they have done their homework, its too big an issue for them not to.

robski

polarbearit

I too have never signed anything with my last two years insurance Royal&Sun and 17-40!

Jon

ROBO

I am going through this dilemma before i heavily modify my MY 98, have decided to inform my insurance , will notify on increase.

chiark

Thanks to this thread, I've just notified Axa Direct, my current insurer, of my change in wheels.

No premium increase, no problems whatsoever as they're subaru genuine items and, bizarrely, they confirmed that I hadn't flared the wheel arches.

Marvellous people. Note placed on file and new documents issued to reflect this.

barge

You can bet your **** that if you have not told the insurance co about something, wether you know about it or not that if they can get out of not paying they will.

Just insurning my wifes car, they specificaly asked about modifications, including different wheels, I asked why & was told even if the wheels are the same size as factory spec it will make the car look different and thus more likly to be stolen, Spot lights are apparenly a modification, along with exhaust, Down pipes should be declared as a seperate exchaust mod, roll Cages, brakes, ICE, bonnett vents, tinted windows you name it & direct line want to know about it. They will be asking about what petrol you use next as 97 SUL will give better performance than 95 NUL !!

berrick

this one interests me too.

A friend on mine was telling me that half of the Ts&Cs that the insurance companies threaten you with is a load of blag.

For instance the bit about if you don't have Tax/MOT your not insuranced. He reckons this is legally not the case. Has any actually either been asked to produce proof of these when making a claim or heard of anyone having a claim refused because of it?

I don't reckon the legal position can be definitive and moreover the courts tend to protect individuals rights more than big companies (quite right in the case of scumbag insurers!). So I suspect thatthe insurers would need to prove the case that the modifications were instrumental in causing an incident leading to a claim - that would too tough legally and they wouldn't bother.

Surely there must be some underworked lawyer amongst the membership who could dish the facts?

bob

An Insurance company once asked me why the car had not been taxed for 2 yrs. I simply told them its cheaper to pay the fine if you get caught. Which it was in the old days I got paid out and nothing was said. So I take it you do not need tax. A MOT might be differant.

MatthewC

berrick:
i sense some truth in your words.

The tax/MOT thing must be bollx. UK law protects you from unfair contracts, so just because you sign up to such a clause doesn't make it legally binding.
Mods are a bit trickier...
I reckon if the mods are purely internal, then a theft claim seems bulletproof. (although obviously they could refuse to pay to replace anything expensive). However, if you have an accident that would have been less severe at lower speeds (i.e. ANY accident where your car was moving, pretty much!), you can see an argument for saying that a faster car was more at risk. Tricky one this....

Have to say I'd want a more authoritative legal view before I took the risk. And if you think about the situation, it's not in anyone's interest to share the info, is it?

scrapydoo

Mods must be disclosed.

We have had a claim repudiated because of a pin-stripe on a fiesta pop!!!

Also Zurich repudiated a theft claim for spot lights, it made the car look more attractive. So when it was recovered they refused to pay.

One insurer even repudiated an accident claim because of a cherry bomb and a different dash in a mini!!!!!!

MOT's must be valid as its a policy condition for a car to be road worthy, no tax is fine!! (not by me of course)

So declare your mods or you could be in trouble - heads have been removed to check bores in the past

The Insurance Man

Diesel

Disclose all to the insurance co. It may not even cost you any more cash if you have a straight through system in my experience. If they refuse a claim it could screw your life up for many years - imagine no holidays and Scooby toys!

Try Master Quote for insurance 0870 241 1572, cheapest expensive cover for me out of all of them!!

Dave T-S

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by berrick:
<B>this one interests me too.

A friend on mine was telling me that half of the Ts&Cs that the insurance companies threaten you with is a load of blag.

For instance the bit about if you don't have Tax/MOT your not insuranced. He reckons this is legally not the case. Has any actually either been asked to produce proof of these when making a claim or heard of anyone having a claim refused because of it?

I don't reckon the legal position can be definitive and moreover the courts tend to protect individuals rights more than big companies (quite right in the case of scumbag insurers!). So I suspect thatthe insurers would need to prove the case that the modifications were instrumental in causing an incident leading to a claim - that would too tough legally and they wouldn't bother.

Surely there must be some underworked lawyer amongst the membership who could dish the facts?

[/quote]


Berrick
You are a million miles off target. Yes, your insurer is legally obliged under the Road Traffic Acts to pay any third party claim even if your car is not legal.
However, they can refuse to pay your own damage and sue you to recover the TP costs.


Re mods, it is fraud to intentionally not disclose mods. As I said earlier in this thread, in contract law, an insurance policy is unique in that it is based on utmost good faith - the onus is on the proposer to declare anything material. Modifications are material. If you knowingly withold material facts then you have to suffer any consequences. I don't think it would look very good if you were standing up in court accused of fraud but please feel free to try it....

If you had someone deliberately withold information from YOU in these circumstances you would soon be squealing....

robski

Dave,

hows the basic guide coming on.

Ready for me to have a look yet?

robski

Adam M

This brings me back to my original point in my other thread.

I can declare every performance mod legitimately and legally to privilege, without withholding any info.

These include several performance mods.

Their reply is always to note it on my policy and then ask me how much horsepower gain I have received.

But with a mappable ecu, (which i do not have) you can choose as much or as little horsepower as you like, and demonstrate it on a rolling road. Rolling road print outs are all that it takes to satisfy the underwriters at privilege.

All that needs to happen is to remap the ecu. In the event of an accident, I have no knowledge of insurance investigators ever getting to the car before you would have a chance to redo the map.

many ecus can run 2 and switch between them.

Theer is also the prospect of saving an entirely different map on disk, and entirely erasing all existance of a more powerful map, with out it being detectable.

there is a difference here with respect to other peoples claims about disclosing to prevent failure to pay out, in that if you declare all mods, and show proof of no increase, then it removes suspicion in the first place. Effectively closing off that avenue for investigation.

Even if an investigator does persue that line, he will still find a genuine eg. 280bhp map. And teh only way for him to test it anyway is to fix the car and stick it back on a rolling road.

have I missed something here? because I can't see any problem with what I have stated as a hypothetical situation!

Dave T-S

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by robski:
<B>Dave,

hows the basic guide coming on.

Ready for me to have a look yet?

robski[/quote]


Robski
Zero progress so far M8 - been too busy trying to extricate myself from Independent and modding the cars.....

robski

Adam,

as we discussed in the other thread. In those circumstances I agree, it would be possible (but fraudulent I would say) to not declare the current tune of a car running modifications that allows the state of tune to be variable.

Dave,

well get a move on then!!

robski

Dave P

Re Privelidge.

You have to sign and return one copy of the original documents.

Then annually they send you a renewal. If you do nothing insurance continues under the CURRENT terms. The covering letter advises you that you must inform them if your circumstances i.e. convictions mods etc have changed.

Dave

Rum*

Well the comment from this office is...

Advise the insurer of ALL modifications...in writing...sent if possible by recorded delivery (ideally with your proposal form at the policy inception)...most insurers won't charge for itsy bitsy internal mods (gear ***** etc)...however they will look at external mods (lights, spoilers, wheels, brakes, exhausts etc) and more than likely load for performance related mods (ECU etc)...

...at least if advised at renewal, and confirmed in writing, in the event of a claim everyone knows what is being covered and there won't be an issue with settlement!!

RICH WILD

How about this for bollox then?

I presently have a Thatcham 2 immobiliser and a non-Thatcham alarm. I asked my insurance co. what the discount would be if I kept the immobiliser and swapped the duff alarm for a Clifford Concept 600 with anti hijack, the lot (600 notes worth of kit). They told me NO DISCOUNT!

I'm prepared to spend 600 quid to stop the car being nicked or carjacked which will mean they have less chance of coughing up cash to me, but they won't discount my insurance for it, yet if I put a bigger soddin' backbox on or bigger wheels and they want to bump it up however much.

Seems they have you, whatever.

At least Highwaymen hid their faces with masks when they robbed you!

Lime

If you need to get cover on a Jap import with Mods try ATS, I have told them all my mods also there is no need for any tracking devices.

Rich not wishing to disappoint you, but using the blackjax anti hijack system on a Clifford 600 will mean it is no longer classed as Thatcham approved and so would make your car not covered for theft and if you had a fault accident as well I expect!

If you check your insurance policy I bet you are not covered for theft when trying to sell your car, which is likely to be the time you really want to use blackjax!