View Full Version : Question to anyone with any mods?
MattSpinks
17-01-2002, 10:50
Do you tell your insurance company about your mods?
Does it make much of a difference to premium?
At present i pay close to £1000 for insurance.
I have standard 1995 2.0 8v Ibiza, with K&N, Badgeless Grill and Leon Cupra Side Repeaters.
I have fitted a set of 1.8 20vt wheels and also i have a set of the original seat side skirts, which should be going on next month.
When discussing with insurance company possibility of having wheels and skirts they advised would cost me another 10%.
I was bit gutted as they are Seat brand skirts and wheels so not really any different from newer model Gti.
What do you guys think from your experience?
I have declared all my mods to the insurance company. I'm not sure how much difference it makes to the price, because I've kept adding more mods over the 2 years i've had it.
I'm currently paying approx £800 fully comp, and I'm guessing that without mods it would be about £450.
I'm with Equity Red Star, via Adrian Flux.
i haven't got many mods :rolleyes: but yes it does make a differnce i pay £2400 all mods declared apart from chip. however i have 2 bans and 6 points and no no claims.
david
BBSparky
17-01-2002, 11:22
Mine are all declared, didnt make that much of a difference to the premium. Would hate to think waht would happen if you needed to claim and they found out though! OUCH! easier to pay up in the first place i think.
MattSpinks
17-01-2002, 12:45
Cheers Guys,
I work in insurance so i really should know better about not declearing mods, just wondered what general concensus was though.
Cheers:cheers:
Matt
hopkinsgm
17-01-2002, 12:52
Hmmm, interesting - I have 20vT wheels on my 8v Cupra and my insurance company didn't charge extra as they were a Seat part and they reckoned it was a purely cosmetic mod. They didn't charge for the brake upgrades either, which don't use Seat parts.
What they did charge extra for (about 70 quid, including a 25 quid admin charge) was the Koni suspension kit as they reckon that's a performance mod.
This is the odd part - I got 16's to improve the turn-in, and uprated the brakes for more stopping power so I could brake later for corners. Surely these are also performance modifications? Not that i'm arguing with them, they rob me black & blue as it is, so if they don't want to charge me any extra cash that's fine by me! :D
Glyn
MattSpinks
17-01-2002, 13:02
Hmmmmmm
Think i`ll have a word with the company before paying any extra. Surely Skirts and Wheels are purely cosmetic and also genuine Seat parts.
The case continues.........
Matt,
I had an instance with my first modded car where I was insured with Guradian Direct and I had a crash, the engineer turned up and saw the mods and they paid to have it put back to standard and then cancelled my policy, I then found out that it would ave cost me about £80 more on my premium!
Also Essex Constabulary were the first to install the number plate readers that will take your details and then they will get a complete insurance check up on you as it takes info direcct from DVLA.
I guess its whether you wanna take the risk or not as the Police are getting pretty strict on it and lests face it if you have moded your car then you stand out a bit ;)
I would recommend Fluxy ;)
I think that some companies would say that upgrading your brakes and things like suspension are making the car safer and so you would not be penalised!
Si
hopkinsgm
17-01-2002, 13:59
Originally posted by CupraSi
...upgrading your brakes and things like suspension are making the car safer...
The flipside is that brake upgrades mean you CAN brake harder and later for corners. Brake too hard and/or too late and you unbalance the car - is that safer? Under certain conditions it can be downright dangerous...
Originally posted by MattSpinks
...Skirts and Wheels are purely cosmetic...
I'd agree on the skirts, but larger wheels with lower profile cars tuck under less (up to a point). The car will hence turn in far better (see my previous post) meaning you can chuck it into a corner quicker and carry more speed through a corner - so you didn't really need the brake upgrade anyway ;)
Glyn
Adrian Flux charged me £50 extra for new wheels, and £50 extra for new brake discs and pads. Then £150 for head, cams, chip, and induction kit. They didn't ask for RR readouts, I just told them that "it should be about 180bhp", and they probably just picked £150 off the top of their head. Who knows? Who cares? I'm covered.
One thing though, when i phoned about some new mods I didn't tell them about the exhaust centre section, different side repeaters, and different grille (not that the last two are very important compared to the other mods i've got). But when I filled out the modded vehicle form that they subsequently sent, I put them down. I wander what would happen if you tried this with something like wheels - would they notice and charge you more?
Choose Adrian Flux as the more mods you do the cheaper it gets which is a bonus also say you do any cosmetic mods eg bodykit yourself and mechanicals are done by a certified professional they really like this as it supposidly means you take care of your car and are a safer driver. with engine mods and suspension mine went up 15% but after the rest of the mods it came down to less than it was in the first place
go figure !
Chris