Insurance Declarations

[tray1664]

When I wrote off my last car (first and only accident so far touch wood). was amazed at the low payout so gap insurance a must this time. However I was also quite amazed by the insurers reaction to the "extras" on the car. Essentially add-ons should have been declared when taking out the policy which would have increased the premium but the payout didn't take these extras into account

So my question is is it worth declaring options such as parking sensors etc which would increase the premium but not necessarily the payout in event of accident? Anybody else experienced this?

Recommendations on good insurers also welcome as I'm new to Mercs.

 

[Blobcat]

I hate all insurance companies equally :evil:
I wouldn't accept their first offer at all and would keep on at them until I was happy with the deal. Options are an interesting one, I've never been asked that although non of mine are aftermarket options. In reality they don't make a difference to the price when your selling (only when buying) so shouldn't make much if any difference to the insurance cost.

 

[tray1664]

That's what I thought but I had a Volvo S80 which had a couple of the additional packs on it, leather/nubuck seats, sunroof and a few others. The trouble is as with most cars these days it's difficult to know what is "factory fitted" as so many things are options. I haggled with them and eventually got probably a reasonable settlement for the age and mileage on the car but only to get a car of equivalent mileage - so nowhere near what I wanted therefore more wary this time and going for GAP insurance.
Talking to the engineer when I was querying it the prices they gave me was the exact glass' guide figure (and it was an odd figure as well so must have come from the same source), similarly when going for trade in dealers look at the age of the car and the miles which they plug into their systems and get an arbitrary figure - Extras have little value on the second hand market apart from making the car more likely to sell they don't really affect the price. Hance my reluctance to pay extra on the insurance.

 

[Blobcat]

With my CBR I submitted 20+ adverts for similar bikes, however all had many more miles on. Eventually (10 months later) I received a settlement I was happy with.

 

[A1000]

When I wrote off my last car (first and only accident so far touch wood). was amazed at the low payout so gap insurance a must this time. However I was also quite amazed by the insurers reaction to the "extras" on the car. Essentially add-ons should have been declared when taking out the policy which would have increased the premium but the payout didn't take these extras into account

So my question is is it worth declaring options such as parking sensors etc which would increase the premium but not necessarily the payout in event of accident? Anybody else experienced this?

Recommendations on good insurers also welcome as I'm new to Mercs.

Not an easy one to answer as I found recently. Some insurers, such as Admiral, only insure the basic car (i.e. not including any manufacturer's options or after market modifications) and will only pay out on the basis of the basic car price.

Other insurers, such as Norwich Union, are only interested in after market modifications, not factory fitted options, and try to increase the premium for them.

And others want you to declare all modifications and options and will try to increase the premiums for them.

All in all you have to be careful as to what your policy covers as the various price coparison sites often don't highlight the detailed differences and they can make a significant difference to the premium.

I only know this as we recently went through the issue on both of our cars, one of which has no options and one of which is fully loaded and we foudn that picking the best insurer for each type easily outweighed the various discounts for insuring both cars with the same insurer.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rory]

Not an easy one to answer as I found recently. Some insurers, such as Admiral, only insure the basic car (i.e. not including any manufacturer's options or after market modifications) and will only pay out on the basis of the basic car price.

Admiral are well known for this - I assume the same conditions apply to their other group companies, like Elephant and Bell.

I insure with Frizzell (Liverpool Victoria). I forget the exact wording but they say something like, audio equip is only covered up to £500 unless it's part of the cars original spec. As I have COMAND I was somewhat concerned to get this right and they were happy to write and confirm that as long as it was factory fitted then it was covered.

 

[jberks]

essentially an insurance co will give you the 'value' of the car. They often start by saying that the value is really the trade in value as thats whatyou can sell it for. However, you have the right to ask them to just replace the car, at which point they normally get more sensible.

Extras are complicated. On a new car, if they offer new for old for the first year as many insurers do, then they would have to stump up for all the extras so an extra premium is called for. After that, as extras are worth very little on the used value of the car, I'd expect the premium to drop the 'extras' bit as they no longer count on the car's value.

I guess this is where gap insurance really comes into it's own, though I've never taken it out myself figuring that on a cost/benefit basis, if I am to spend the extra, an extra year's warranty is better value, after all, I've not had a write off since I crashed my £500 ford escort and to be fair, a broken headlight would have written that off. You have to go some to write off a £25k car - beyond a CAT D buyback option anyway.

 

[tray1664]

I'm picking up the c class on saturday which valued at £14k at the moment I plan on keeping it a few years so that's where the GAP would come in for me. I suppose I would have never bothered either until I crashed my Volvo - it was £14k when I got it 4 years ago and did have 160k on the clock so value was about £3.5k however a car that I've done the miles in and I know the history of so although lots of cars around at that mileage with lower spec unknown history - would you buy a car with 150k on that you didn't know. GAP insurance would have given me the extra 10k to get a similar spec.

Bearing in mind this was a sub 10mph shunt up the back of someone that took out the radiotor, front suspension bodywork etc - it was over £2k just to reset the airbags and seatbelt tensioners so wouldn't take much to write off a £14k merc with their service prices. I think you only look at GAP once you've been burned.

The problem I find is, especially with a second hand car - what was factory fitted and what was an option. I think I've found a spec guide to the factory options but the parktronic must have been factory fitted but specified as extra when new so does that count? As you say on second hand cars the extras make it more desirable but not necessarily more expensive. - The house always wins as they say.

 

[hawk20]

When I wrote off my last car (first and only accident so far touch wood). was amazed at the low payout so gap insurance a must this time. However I was also quite amazed by the insurers reaction to the "extras" on the car. Essentially add-ons should have been declared when taking out the policy which would have increased the premium but the payout didn't take these extras into account

So my question is is it worth declaring options such as parking sensors etc which would increase the premium but not necessarily the payout in event of accident? Anybody else experienced this?

Recommendations on good insurers also welcome as I'm new to Mercs.

If you get What Car they set up a panel of experts to write what a policy should cover and got tenders to supply that. You can do via What Car. Liverpool Victoria are the company they use. Excellent coverage, nice to deal with and pay out promptly. And if you did have any troubles, you can go to What Car who sort.

Many will tell you that extras do not affect resale values but that is not really true. What is true is that some lazy dealers just offer you the Glass's guide figure for an average car but there are always good dealers who take more trouble. My local dealer pays £1,000 more for a 3 year old E class with COMAND than for one without. And he says the trade now do too.

Some extras add as much as they cost. According to Glass's Guide auotomatic boxes add what they cost. Nothing else is as good as an auto for resale value. For leather, Elegance or Avantgarde you get about half what they cost when reselling at 3 years old.

If you go to Glass's website you can put in your car (with no extras) and get a value. Then put it in with the extras you have and they will give you an enhanced value. Only costs £3 and you get trade prices, part ex prices, private and dealer sale prices. When I sell I print off the Glass's valuation and use it as a tool for haggling with. I have found it does help.

Lastly, all threads I have read suggest never take their first offer for a write-off. Be nice but be firm and give them examples of cars for sale at specs like yours.

IMO gap insurance is outrageously expensive.

 

[jberks]

Interesting view on gap insurance. The key purpose of it is to cover the gap between what is owed and what is paid out, not to provide a new for old cover on worn out cars per-se. It's officially for folk that buy a car for £20k, wreck it 6 months later when the insurance co will only pay 14k for it and the finance is still £19k - hence the GAP bit. I am surprised you could get cover on a car of that age or for a period of 5 years as the gap you are covering will be very wide after that period of time, especially at that mileage. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't a mileage limit on it too. After all, that dramatically affects their valuations and hence their risk. Do check the small print carefully.

In your position I'd have accepted that the car was worth 3.5k and probably needed replacing shortly anyway - hence inconvenient but no real harm done. Also, if you'd planned on keeping it, surely you could have repaired the car for a lot less than £2k. (£2k insurance= around £1200 cash). A few carefully chosen used parts etc and the price comes tumbling down. Just do a CAT D buy back (they normally agree to keep it off the register too). Every time I've done this, I've ended up with fixed car and a nice lump of change into the bargain.

 

[hawk20]

Interesting view on gap insurance. The key purpose of it is to cover the gap between what is owed and what is paid out, not to provide a new for old cover on worn out cars per-se. It's officially for folk that buy a car for £20k, wreck it 6 months later when the insurance co will only pay 14k for it and the finance is still £19k - hence the GAP bit. I am surprised you could get cover on a car of that age or for a period of 5 years as the gap you are covering will be very wide after that period of time, especially at that mileage. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't a mileage limit on it too. After all, that dramatically affects their valuations and hence their risk. Do check the small print carefully.

In your position I'd have accepted that the car was worth 3.5k and probably needed replacing shortly anyway - hence inconvenient but no real harm done. Also, if you'd planned on keeping it, surely you could have repaired the car for a lot less than £2k. (£2k insurance= around £1200 cash). A few carefully chosen used parts etc and the price comes tumbling down. Just do a CAT D buy back (they normally agree to keep it off the register too). Every time I've done this, I've ended up with fixed car and a nice lump of change into the bargain.

I didn't know you could buy back and repair CAT D write offs. Thanks. Father in law just had his Spacewagon written off as dearer to repair (they say) than it is worth. I'll let him know.

Gap insurance. LV cover the gap in their standard policy (between market value and cost of replacing with new) for a year (or maybe two, I forget which) but I was offered Gap insurance by the dealer for £500 !!!! to extend this to three years of cover.

 

[gmcelroy]

Dealer prices for gap insurance are always really expensive - if you've bought your car new what you actually need is RTI or RTV gap insurance (Return to Invoice or Return to Value - depending on if its brand new or used).

Typically a 3yr policy for 20K car covering gap of 10K would be ~ 150 or so online - and would pay upto 10K on the difference between insurance payout and invoice or (if used) purchase price. So for the cover its quite an attractive option.

 

[Rory]

Interesting view on gap insurance. The key purpose of it is to cover the gap between what is owed and what is paid out, not to provide a new for old cover on worn out cars per-se. It's officially for folk that buy a car for £20k, wreck it 6 months later when the insurance co will only pay 14k for it and the finance is still £19k - hence the GAP bit.

There are several different kinds of GAP cover available, including return to invoice and return to value, as well as the kind of finance GAP that you decribe. You can buy different maximum payout values.

It has occured to me before, that if you, for example, bought a £25K and then stuck 150K miles on it over 4 years, it would be worth next to nothing. It would be extremely nice to be able to get the original invoice value back if something should "unfortunately" happen to the car.

 

[JEZ.S320L]

Not an easy one to answer as I found recently. Some insurers, such as Admiral, only insure the basic car (i.e. not including any manufacturer's options or after market modifications) and will only pay out on the basis of the basic car price.

Other insurers, such as Norwich Union, are only interested in after market modifications, not factory fitted options, and try to increase the premium for them.

And others want you to declare all modifications and options and will try to increase the premiums for them.

All in all you have to be careful as to what your policy covers as the various price coparison sites often don't highlight the detailed differences and they can make a significant difference to the premium.

I only know this as we recently went through the issue on both of our cars, one of which has no options and one of which is fully loaded and we foudn that picking the best insurer for each type easily outweighed the various discounts for insuring both cars with the same insurer.

Hope this helps.

I have recently tried to re-insure my ML via an Overseas UK policy. The declaration stated that the car was:

a) Kept in a secure (underground) car park on a GATED community (24hr security) with CCTV and coded ANPR entry and exit.

b) Annual mileage LESS than 5k a year

c) FULL NCB - 10yrs +

d) Had 20" Alloys fitted

All went well until d) - sharp intake of breath, lots of "Oh'ss and Ah'sss" and was then DECLINED.... because of the Alloys...!!!!!!

Subsequently, I went to a Spanish Insurer - no problems whatsoever, and the annual premium was less than half of the 'old' UK premium. OH - and I got FULL breakdown cover and European cover thrown in as well.!!

Result .!!