[FONTAL]

Does anyone know if u have to declare an after market exhuast to the insurance company

[mainlinemenace]

I have one on my Elise and Moonshine has one on his COOPER and we have not declared any mods.

you are okay unless you prang it and the assesor spies something unusual, see moonshine (he lives in the ferry)cos his is quite discreet and it would take a well trained eye to spot it

its up to you me boy


ps, car is on its way should be here tues next week

[FONTAL]

Cheers I have a playmini exhuast fitted to mine and the problem is it has been in a prang (gues who forgot to tell the insurance company )

[mainlinemenace]

bu**er,

your not the person i trhought u were, your not gettin your new MINI next week,

Its the lucky DEWLAY

[moonshine]

Fontal,

mainlinemenace isn't quite right here.....

I have john's old HKS pipe, and a pipercross kit on the car, and i chose to declare it to my firm....it cost me 30 quid extra for the year, but i thought it was worth it for the extra piece of mind.

I had race cans on my bike, and never declared them...i think that insurance firms only tend to consider them if they think that the mod was contributory to the accident / incident.

i.e it could be argued that that a nice set of aftermarket alloys make the car more attractive to theft, so therefore nondisclosure may cause problems then,

it could be argued that zorst or induction kit add power, therefore change the insurance rating of the car...

Why don't you get the old pipe back on B4 the assessor comes around...or is it too late? Has he already noticed it?

Let me know whats happening

gerry

[dietcokeplease]

An insurance company can refuse to pay out in the event of a claim if the car is fitted with aftermarket exhausts, alloy wheels, bodystyling etc if the items are not declared.

Generally most insurance co's are fairly flexible about mods as long as power output does not increase too much (prob no more than 10% above standard or 10bhp).

The thing is whether you are prepared to take the risk! The funny thing is that insurance co's are remarkably ageist. They would be more likely to refuse a claim made by a 17 year old with an aftermarket exhaust and would be unlikely to do so with a 50 year old male.

[Dom]

Eagle star only want an extra £27 for induction kit and zorst, so I'd say it's worth it.

Bell Direct wanted £100... robbing *******s!!

better get it sorted pronto, an insurance company would probably look for any way out of a claim!!

Dom

[smiffy]

Quote:

Originally posted by Dom
Bell Direct wanted £100... robbing *******s!!

[knaone]

Sorry.... just a bit happy



David

Quote:

Originally posted by dietcokeplease
...The funny thing is that insurance co's are remarkably ageist. They would be more likely to refuse a claim made by a 17 year old with an aftermarket exhaust and would be unlikely to do so with a 50 year old male.

Don't take offence at this but I think you're wide off the mark. They aren't ageist, in the way I think you're trying to portay them, e.g. prejudiced for no apparent reason. Statistically the youngest, least experienced drivers have the most accidents, and within that, the most serious kinds of accidents. As our Motor Manager told me the week I started (I've worked for a UK general insurer now for many years) 'cars are cheap to repair, people aren't'. £10k's worth of damage to a BMW or MERC is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It's the injury claims around of half a million per person, when kids roll/stack or total their cars, loaded up with all their mates in, that's what hurts our bank balance. Those are the ones that are affecting your premium and influencing insurers opinions of young and inexperienced drivers. There's also an argument that says you've don't get many Max Power'd Pensioners either (but then again, I've had a claim for a total'd Impreza where the owner - aged early 50's - non-disclosed £9k worth of Prodrive mods, so there's always an exception to the rule!)

I don't mean to have a pop, it just annoys me that insurers get a lot of negative press, and that people don't appreciate them. There's not many people who could afford to stand the (not inconsiderable) financial risks on their own (not unless you were David Beckham!).



DBK.

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Cheers the car is back to standard now anyway but I thought that I would ask the question anyway.
Nobody has been round to asses the car yet I suppose it will probobly get done down the road.
Cheers agian Richard

[rjwhittington]

The trend in the UK is now for 18-25 year old to customize small cars. e.g. Big exhaust, Alloy wheels, Spoilers, Engine Mods and Body Kits, Stereos. But I cannot believe even one of them informs the insurance company of any of these mods.

As they can only afford 3rd party insurance I suspect it makes no difference, as the insurance company is unlikely to refuse payment to an innocent 3rd party.

Surely modifications only affect us Comprehensive policy holders where the insurer has some scope to protect itself. A friend of mine (30+) had no end of trouble getting agreement on increasing size tyre widths by only one size.

Do insurance companies really take a responsible attitude to customization of 3rd party insured youths? If they clamped down I'm sure we could drastically cut the mayhem on our roads.

[Dom]

Quote:

Originally posted by rjwhittington
The trend in the UK is now for 18-25 year old to customize small cars. e.g. Big exhaust, Alloy wheels, Spoilers, Engine Mods and Body Kits, Stereos. But I cannot believe even one of them informs the insurance company of any of these mods.

As they can only afford 3rd party insurance I suspect it makes no difference, as the insurance company is unlikely to refuse payment to an innocent 3rd party.

Surely modifications only affect us Comprehensive policy holders where the insurer has some scope to protect itself. A friend of mine (30+) had no end of trouble getting agreement on increasing size tyre widths by only one size.

Do insurance companies really take a responsible attitude to customization of 3rd party insured youths? If they clamped down I'm sure we could drastically cut the mayhem on our roads.

I don't think that's too fair a comment. I happen to be one of those youths (albeit, with a bit more taste), and I know plenty. I've definitely declared all of the little things that I've changed on my car, even my stereo. My friend has a roll cage in his car, and there's only about 8 insurance companies in the UK that will thus insure him... he still went through the trouble of finding them and declaring it.

I will agree, however, that some of the cheaper sheds are not declared.

I just would rather not be told that I haven't declared my mods

Dom

[dietcokeplease]

Quote:

Originally posted by dietbruking
I don't mean to have a pop, it just annoys me that insurers get a lot of negative press, and that people don't appreciate them.

DBK,

I also used to work for an Insurance Company in my youth. Under their graduate training scheme, I got 3 month placements in all their various departments. The underwriting and claims departments were eye-openers. (The best claim was a product liability claim where a man sued a sex shop after buying a penis enlarger and found he couldn't do the business with his wife after using it! But I digress )

My point is that insurance for the sensible is not optional, it's a captive market because of legislation. The reason insurance co's get negative press is precisely because of their tardiness in the past paying out claims. I'd go as far as saying that the claims department I worked with were a bunch of jobsworths with no discretion, leniency or compassion. It's taken companies such as Direct Line to change the market with a more customer focused approach.

I ended up working in Investments and Equities after my stint. The biggest lie is that Insurance Companies made a loss of say £100 million on underwriting motor policies. They conveniently forget to mention the time factor - that is they delay between receiving premiums and paying out on claims. I worked on a team investing the money into equities, bonds, gilts and funds. Let's just say that the results covered the £100 million loss many times over!

It's a case of knowing the beast! Don't get me wrong DBK, I've heard many wonderful stories where insurance companies have helped (mainly travel policies though!

DC

[IgorTheHunchback]

Igor thinks it depends.

If you think for a moment that old cars never get the orginal (make, type) of exhaust back on then no.

Igor thinks however, if it changed the BHP of your Mini then Igor thinks yes.

However Igor also thinks that they will probably not do anything if you ask garage to fit back standard.

(Igor works in Insurance but not in Car )

[KenL]

Quote:

Originally posted by IgorTheHunchback

(Igor works in Insurance but not in Car )

Ken thought Igor rung bells for a living

[quote]Originally posted by dietcokeplease
[b]

...(The best claim was a product liability claim where a man sued a sex shop after buying a penis enlarger and found he couldn't do the business with his wife after using it! But I digress )


No way!!!! We've got a guy here who's hobby is funny claims and great customer names. He keeps copies of all the files (don't mention the Data Protection Act...) and it's the archive we plunder when afternoons get very very boring here! Names like Mr P Ness, Miss Fuk Yu and Mr R Sole while away the hours of tedium no end. Among our claim files is one from a customer who used some 'Taurus' stimulant cream, only for it to cause a considerably painful adverse reaction - think 'Deep Heat' on your family jewels and you get the idea. Not funny... anyhoo, we both digress!

"My point is that insurance for the sensible is not optional, it's a captive market because of legislation."

True, for the benefit of the public at large - not just for insurers profits!

"I'd go as far as saying that the claims department I worked with were a bunch of jobsworths with no discretion, leniency or compassion. It's taken companies such as Direct Line to change the market with a more customer focused approach."

Well, the only thing I'd say is that IMHO our claims depts are usually really fair, and in that example I quoted earlier with the Scooby, we actually ended up paying out over £20k, even thought there was clear and relevant "non-disclosure of a material fact".

Which kind of gets us back to the point of this original post... for your own peace of mind, its better to declare all and take what coming to you. We underwrite each case individually (and most of the time) our people know what they are doing and make reasonable decisions based on the circumstances. The unpalatable truth is that the whole motor insurance market general does not want ANY male drivers under 25 and will go out of its way to avoid insuring these (way higher than average) risks. Once you turn 25, rush out and buy the highest group car you can afford!



PS. "Let's just say that the results covered the £100 million loss many times over!"

Not at the moment though, what with the markets down the toilet post 9/11... and hence the increases on peoples premiums (to recoup past discounting and redress future lack of investment return?). We made £530m last year and from that £200m went directly to 9/11 claims and another £300m to asbestosis claims for people blighted by that disease during their employment, years ago. That left us £25m, worldwide (after playing the markets etc etc) on billions of pounds of turnover, billions. No wonder our shares have went through the floor!

[dietcokeplease]

Quote:

Originally posted by dietbruking


No way!!!! We've got a guy here who's hobby is funny claims and great customer names. He keeps copies of all the files (don't mention the Data Protection Act...) and it's the archive we plunder when afternoons get very very boring here! Names like Mr P Ness, Miss Fuk Yu and Mr R Sole while away the hours of tedium no end.

Best name I came across sounded totally innocent......

Jenny Taylor



ToiletBrainDC

[Skinnyrunt]

Quote:

Originally posted by rjwhittington
The trend in the UK is now for 18-25 year old to customize small cars. e.g. Big exhaust, Alloy wheels, Spoilers, Engine Mods and Body Kits, Stereos. But I cannot believe even one of them informs the insurance company of any of these mods.

As they can only afford 3rd party insurance I suspect it makes no difference, as the insurance company is unlikely to refuse payment to an innocent 3rd party.

I have to agree with Dom on this one and disagree with you. I used to have a crappy 1.2 Nova with an aftermarket exhaust and engine mods and upgraded stereo etc (no alloys or body kit tho). I declared everything to the insurance company, basically for my own piece of mind.

Even tho as you say it was only insured 3rd party fire and theft, not because I couldn't afford fully comprehensive but because the premium cost more than the car was worth and more than I would have got in a settlement (therefore better value to put the money to one side incase of me writing the car off IMHO).

Since I got my MINI I have fitted an induction kit, exhaust and had the windows tinted and I have told my insurance company about them all. IMHO it's not worth not doing!