ScottishMenace

Waiting on my new STI7 arriving and doing the insurance ring around thing I was shocked to discover that TESCO wanted an extra £143 a year for me to replace the low (standard STI7) rear spolier with an aftermarket one. Their initial premium of £641 was great but when my next few mods go on I think they will start becoming uncompetitive.
Now before this thread gets moved to the Insurance section the point was not just to moan about my extra premium it was to give a word of warning to all those un-declared spoliers and therefore
un-insured Scoobies. Some insurance companies obviously treat spoilers as money spinning high risk extras and they are pretty obvious to spot from an Insurance company's point of view. Take care out there, God I hate Insurance companies.

peccy

you might wannt to try HIC 0845 1290290. they said they dont charge extra for mods, alloys, suspension, exhausts, spoilers etc, just as long as it is fitted by a authorised mechanic and you get a mechanics report to say it as been fitted properly.

sillysi

I applied for insurance with Tesco online and they came out really cheap for a standard MY01 WRX. But when I rang them to query aftermarket spoiler their quote changed to be in line with Privilege who said they did not bother about the spoiler. So it looks like some companies just build in to their quotes a little extra and then say they are not bothered about so and so !

M8TT J

Just so you guys know Tesco insurance is actually Privilage insurance....they buy there insurance through Privilage....Tesco and Privilage both confirmed this when asked....weird

MikesWagon

Not trying to defend the insurance companies, but if you add a bigger spoiler, that's more attractive in your eyes right? That's also more attractive to the thieving ******* eyes, so more likely to get nicked.

Mike.

ScottishMenace

Agreed Mike but insurance for the STI 7 Prodrive with the large spoiler is the same price as the non prodrive with the small spolier.
Even if I put the Prodrive spoiler on it from a subaru dealership they will still charge me £140 a year.
I understand insurance companies want to charge extra for mods but can't see the logic here.

Dave Allan

Tiggs

dont tell them then.

mega_stream

Stupid advice Tiggs!

Save £140 but loose thousands in the event of a claim...very wise..

Tiggs

lol- thanks for your kind words

tell me the sort of claim that they would refuse to pay out on then? just out of interest!

cause if the cars nicked then they have no idea whats on it and if the car crashes are they going to refuse a claim cause it had different spoiler (doubt they would even know what spoiler was OE and what wasnt!)

Tiggs

BL

I told Tescos about my Rallytech spoiler & there wasnt an increase in premium. They asked me is it like a Cosworth whale tale & i said NO. They then asked is it a boot lip spoiler & i said NO. I then told them its in between these & gave them the measurements. After the guy had a chat with the underwriters, they replied with the result which i had hoped.

Hope this is of help.

Bob

mega_stream

Tiggs I dunno m8
All I do know is that if an insurance company can get out of paying they will..and a BFO spoiler on the back of your car that they don't know about is gonna be a sure fire point they will pick up on.

Sad but true, they stung me for £60 for 6months cover for an sti6 spoiler...(even though I told them it was a replica and half the price of the original sti4 I was taking off! )

Tiggs

i have had 4 minor bumps and 1 write off plus 3 stolens- every one of these required insurance cover (all 4 bumps were my fault).

as it happens these cars were all standard (ish ) but if they had not been no one would have cared less- in fact the write off (which cost the ins. co. £60k+ in total payout) involved some bloke giving my car a quick glance and saying "yep, thats written off!" the car could have had aftermarket brakes, shocks, spoliers, ecu's- infact as he never lifted the bonnet it could well have had a different engine!

not suggesting ppl use this as an excuse to avoid telling ins. co. details of their car but it is another side to the story that ins. co. will do anything to avoid paying out.

Tiggs

pslewis

Tiggs - I had a car nicked and returned to me 3 months later - the Loss Adjuster comes round and they are NOT idiots, they KNOW what they expect to see. Thank god mine was 'as described' as otherwise I wouldnt have got a penny - and all quite legal too!!

So, the advice you offer to not tell, could only be described as rather cavalier - I have NO objections to someone wanting to save some money taking a risk, but dont cry when they find the car and it has that nice lovely Non-Standard Spoiler on - and they WILL know the difference.

Save £140 lose £20000 - hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I think I will tell all

Pete

mega_stream

Take it to the extreme, tell em its a Sport

(joke)

Yorkie

Or a Justy with an Impreza Turbo bodykit......Okay, I'll get my coat.....

ScottishMenace

Maybe its just me but when you pay for your insurance you are really paying for "peace of mind". If I didn't tell the barstewards about my mods then there would always be that niggling "what if" and NO peace of mind. I also dont have £25k+ to throw away.
As it stands TESCO totally screwed the thing up anyway and had the STI7 incorrectly graded which meant a further £250 quid up to near enough £1000. I went to Greenlight in the end.

Dave Allan

warbs

It's an insurance companies business plan not to pay out.

If they never payed out then they'd get no customers, but the one time you hit someone and put them in a wheel chair for the rest of their life, you can be your life that they're gonna check your car was what you said it was before paying out.

Chris

Tiggs

you reckon if you hit someone and put them in achair the ins. co. would refuse payment if you had a non std spolier???????

imo- dont belive it

PaulT00

Insurance companies get very cagey when it looks like they will have to pay out even a moderate amount of money. Years ago my car (a rather nice mark 1 BM 323i, sob, snif) was written off while parked outside my front gate. The bimbo who did it said she'd blacked out, lost control and planted her knackered Maxi in the back of my BM on an otherwise empty residential street.

Her insurance company offered me a derisory sum. When I started arguing about it, they then suspended their interest in the claim for four months while doing their absolute damnedest to find a way to invalidate her policy - medical reports, the whole works, in the hope that she was subject to some sort of condition which made her prone to blacking out. This was over a claim on which they ended up paying out about 2.5K .

So while this does not constitute concrete proof that insurance companies will refuse to pay out under the extreme circumstances described simply because your car is technically not what they insured, it does seem like a pretty good bet. Personally I wouldn't take the chance - paying someone half a million quid in damages out of your own pocket is going to make a very big dent in your pocket money for years to come, that's if you manage to escape without a prison sentence.

pslewis

Whatever Tiggs says - I KNOW that if I was the Insurance Co looking at Tiggs claim for a nicked and wrecked Impreza and the loss adjusters photos to the engineers showed a BIG 'look-at-me-I-have-a-tiny-*****' Spoiler - I wouldnt pay out unless it was declared ...................... and if I was his boss paying for such insurance I would sack him when the accountants reported a £20,000 hole in the accounts!!

Pete

tony1979

Pete,

I agree with everything you've said, but I wonder what would happen if you pleaded ignorance, and said that: "the car came with that spoiler when I got it - didn't know it was non-standard".

Knowing insurance companies, they probably wouldn't give a ****, and not pay out anyway.

Just a thought.

Tony.

Luke

Pete is well correct on this one. Insurance companies are getting smarter. You have signed a contract which states you are responsible to ensure the spec of your car. Its down to you to get it right.

This topic is mad.... We are all complaining about the cost of insurance and then others want to try and con the companies... If I worked for an insurance company I would belooking at not paying out ,if the contract was broken.



Luke

Tiggs

"Whatever Tiggs says - I KNOW .." ahh, well if pete knows then i'll get my coat

by the way- what photos are you giving the adjuster? i have no photos of my car to give anyone under those circumstances????

Tiggs

ps- if you were my boss and you annoyed me about my spoiler i would go over your head and have you sacked for pettyness!

Diablo

LOL....along with dogs, here is something else Tiggs clearly knows **** all about

You don't half get some cr@p advice posted on here

D

fast bloke

Tiggs - My mates mother in law crashed into his VR6 trying to get out of the drive. He was parked. She did about a grands worth of damage. He left it into his insurance companies approved repairer. They called him next day to say that as his car had a green induction filter fitted it wasn't covered, as he had carried out modifications without telling them. The small print in his policy confirmed this. He decided he would try to claim directly from his mother in laws insurance. Her insurance company told him that they were not interested as his car was no correctly insured, and he would have to take legal action if he didn't agree with the decision. He ended up splitting the bill with the mother in law.

It seems petty to me, but at the end of the day, you sign an agreement with the insurance company. If you don't honour it why should they?

Cheeky Jim

At the end of the day, it is the insurance company's perogative to offer you cover. If you change your car in anyway, it is their perogative to charge you a fortune for the privilege.

The problem I see is, it is a legal requirement to have car insurance and the Insurance companies have us all over a barrel.

i.e. they can charge you what they think fit.

I was discussing this with a colleague of mine who works in the Insurance industry. Because there is a somewhat closed market, they share it all out amongst themselves. When companies like Direct Line suddenly started offering v. cheap quotes, they all had to drop their prices to compete. Now Direct Line and others have a significant market share and are part of the gang, they slowly rise the price of Insurance up, and re-distribute the wealth so everyone gets a slice of the market.

Of course this could all be a load of B0llocks, but it sounds kinda true.

Just my 2 pennies (which is about what I have left after paying my insurance!!)

Jim

unikey

If your car isnt standard spec and isnt declared they will void your insurance if a reasonable person could have spotted the modifiction (this normally involves taking it to the ombundsman and delays the claim significantly either way) as to the rest insurance companies are the scum of the earth especially RSA (you still own me 12K if your reading this) but your over a barrel so its a put up and shut up situation

Simon

Allianz Cornhill Insurance

davyboy

Do you tell your insurance company when you put Optimax and octane booster in your car as well?? Increase in horse power by x%

Just a though.

DazW

iTrader: (1)

....or when you replace your pads with Green Stuff?

dazmakinen

My E6 TME was at Ralliart waiting for insurance engineer to inspect it after 'car jacking'.

Mods (not declared) - HKS exhaust, HKS Racing suction kit, HKS dump valve, boost gauge.

Engineer looked at car, under bonnet and said.....

"This is nice, how fast do these go then ?"

Then he said OK to the repairs quoted and off he went.