Manufacturers optional extras - What to declare on insurance?

[mouseman87]

Hi again guys

Got another interesting insurance issue now..............

Changed to Churchill insurance(as they were the cheapest by about £100) all ready for when the Cooper S arrives to just transfer over from my current car.

When i called churchill twice and spoke to 2 different people they seemed really really confused about things such as the 'chili pack' and what exactly i needed to declare. In the end they said they had the chili pack on there system and selected it is an optional extra.

Here's the list of optional extras on my Cooper S:

17" Conical Spoke Alloys (part of chili pack)

Anthracite Roof Lining

CHILI Pack

Chrome Line interior

Colour Line Satellite Grey

Full Bluetooth with USB.

Interior surface Striped Alloy

Interior World Carbon Black

Leather interior

Metallic paint

MINI Navigation System

Rain sensor with auto. headlight activat (part of vision pack)

Roof&Mirror Caps in White

Seat heating. front

Sun protection glass

Vision Pack

Xenon headlights (part of chili/vision pack)


Which options do i need to declare............I would have thought myself the Chili pack, Sat Nav and psosibly the sun protection glass? Some insurers don't even require you to declare sat nav. Would i need to declare metalic paint? I never have done before. Just churchill seem pretty awkward about optional extras, yet the staff just don't appear to have the knowledge to let me know what i need to declare and what i don't. They even said i need to declare bluetooth! All seems a bit crazy to me and a bit over the top!

Spoke to Admiral later on and they said all they wanted to know about was the Chili pack and the sun protection glass if its quite a dark tint. They weren't interested at all in sat nav etc.

Its really tempting to just cancel the churchill policy and go with Admiral for about £80-£100 extra! For the sake of less trouble!


Any ideas anyone on what exactly needs to be declared in my optional extras spec?


Thanks in advance

[sad61t]

The Chili pack is quite a common weighting factor (mainly, I think, because of the 17" alloys).

Ask them to define the tint percentage that they consider to be 'dark', then check with a MINI dealer. (I've had a quick, but unsuccessful, look online.)

They are remarkably daft - for example MINI insurance listed my heated windscreen as heated seats. Well, it's got heated in...

[dlpruk]

Everything that you specced as an option over and above the base model counts as a 'modification' in insurancespeak so you must declare every item individually, even if it means a half-hour phone call reading the list to some twerp who knows nothing about cars and cares less.

It may sound daft but it's the only safe way to justify the insured value and you'll be glad you did if the car gets nicked.