Thread: Insurance on cars

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It was recomended to me to have my unfinished cars insured while building them....OK whats your views on this.

Depends upon your situation.....if you have 10K in a car and can afford to lose it if the garage burns down OR it gets stolen, then you dont need insurance. IF you have 100K in a car and can afford to lose it if the garage burns down OR it gets stolen, then you dont need insurance. The big carriers sell insurance on incomplete vehicles too......your homeowners insurance does not cover car parts (most dont). There were several big builders who had fires in the last few years....and ALL customers cars were lost and the builder's insurance covered only a fraction of the replacement cost.

i dont own anything that i cant replace out of my own pocket .. does that mean i`m self insured ?

Charlie-recently I got renters insurance and I bought the best coverage I could get at lowest possible deductible for the Ole Yellar project van setting in the back of the shop.The reason why is I found out the renters doesn't pay as well as the policy on the van.The kick in the head is the renters wants me to inventory everything in the shop and or picture it.Man-that is over 40 yrs of stuff I got....................where do I begin??.

begin by buying a good camera

I have that I think.............it's just so much stuff.

I'm not in the insurance biz, but I worked with (against?) insurance for years. Those guys work on the odds of loss, and they're very good at calculation. The situation that Mike described above where the shop operators that had fire that was insufficient for the contents is a good example of a dumb/cheap shop operator, and maybe an incompetent agent/insurer. When I had my shop, part of calculating the amount of coverage (and of course the premium) was an estimate of the value of a "typical" days automobiles on the premises.

Your question got me to thinking about my home shop situation, and how I'm probably under insured. The rub is, catastrophe is a low probability, thus the premiums are comparatively low, but high chance of significant loss if the bad thing happens. I've got my major value car project insured with Hagerty, they'll insure a rod/antique in project stage. The rest of the toy cars are with Grundy, who told me they don't do projects. As for the shop stuff, like most folks, that should be covered under "normal" home owners. And there's the potential problem. If you've got the typical backyard builder equipment you're probably outside normal coverage limits. Not many "typical" garages have, say, an 80 gallon, high volume compressor, a MIG, TIG, and oxy/acetylene rigs, lathe, sheet metal shear, drill press, and on and on..............think of how much money is in that roll around tool box that you've accumulated over 30 or 40 years. It's probably like high value jewelry that has to be itemized because it isn't "typical" and put on a rider to the base policy to be covered. It occurs that any of us (meaning me as I'm thinking of this) should get a video camera and spend a day going through the shop and recording each significant item that is out of the ordinary, though having it all would be even better, and recording vocally the current replacement value (date stamp it for later adjustment). With electronic storage it's not too hard to keep a copy of the recording off site (wouldn't be worth much to have it burn up with the house), heck, even have a copy in the agent's computer.

Like said earlier, it all comes down to your tolerance for loss. If something bad happens insurance is cheap..........it's just that years of paying without a claim makes it seem costly. It's risk.............

My insurance agent told me my house insurance would cover the parts I had sitting around, but they would not cover them assembled on a vehicle. So, as soon as the car was a roller, I insured it with Midwest Classic. They wanted photos of the front, back and each side of the vehicle. Each time I made a major upgrade (e.g., paint, interior, etc.) they asked for photo updates, and the overall insurance coverage was raised accordingly.

My car is insured thru the house ins. when in the attached garage. But now that it is almost finished and Iam driving it I put Ins. on it. I also put Ins. on it when it went to the paint shop, because the guy that painted it did not have Ins. on his Business. Can you believe that

INSURANCE:
*something you dont need until something happens, then you need it now
*something you pay for but pray you will never use it
*something you buy but have to fight the seller when you need it
*something that, when you use it, the seller makes you sorry you called them
*something that, when you use it, the seller punishes you by raising your cost

I think Insurance is a waste of your hard earned dollars. If I had all the money spent on Insurance in my life time I could buy the bank. As stated it's a risk calculation. Insurance Co's are a pain when it comes time to collect on a claim. It's like make it tough on them wear them out and they might go away.

In 2005 Austin hail storm, Allstate appraised my loss at 250.00, no way . I hired an attorney and collected over 25,000 . I dumped them and now they are sending me " WE want You Back" letters, fat chance. Hoss has the answer.

Sorry about the rage, I hate'm.

There are acouple of kids that live in a house in front of my rented shop.I am thinking I am going to pay them to inventory everything in the shop and then take pictures.It is the only way it is going to get done.That should stand as proof if ever have a loss.The two trailers would be covered if in the shop,but outside unless connected to a tow vehicle are not.That is something I need to look into with consideration of the contents.

I shopped around for all my insurance and settled on a company where I feel comfortable with and know the agent. That is one of the advantages of living in a small city. He may not have the cheapest rates, but I don't mind because I have never had a problem with a claim. I did the same with my street rod insurance. I have had one claim--about $900.00 in damage--in about six years. Absolutely no problem getting it fixed. I don't like writing the check each month, but with a rod valued over $50,000, it is good to have peace of mind.

Funny you should mention insurance. We recently bought a third car to commute with. The alstate agent told me I could save a few hundred a year on our 1993 Toyota truck, by dropping the coverage for it being repaired(i.e. anything we hit it pays for, just not getting it fixed. I told him the truck was in great shape and ran great. He said if the accident is over 1500 in damage they would total it out, so I might as well not cover it) So we talked about it and agreed to change the policy, but I wanted to make sure it was insured against theft. He said o.k., but you are just wasting your money, since then the bumper was stolen, and this week the catalitic converter was cut off with the o2 sensor and stollen. Grand total of repairs was somewhere around 1500 bucks, for both, no out of pocket expense for me, and the additional yearly cost was like 90 bucks for the policy!
Bottom line when you need it it pays to have it! We are now going to invest in security cameras backed up to a hard drive around the house, due to the thefts in our neighborhood going up. It sucks to have to do this kind of stuff, but if it deters theft, or catches them in the act, then it is worth it!

"The rest of the toy cars are with Grundy, who told me they don't do projects" Uncle Bob.

This is what is so frustrating about insurance. I have all three of mine with Grundy because they WOULD insure my 40 coupe project! Go figure.