DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Just renewed my Hagerty policy on my modified 911, based on a 911T '73.

It has previously been AV @£65K and in today's market, far too high.
Hagerty have a value calculator with 4 condition groups, and interpreting this and a brief conversation with them today, re-valued at £50K.

This dropped the cost by £60.

Just thought this would be of interest.

Hi Graham,

I had a weird conversation with my insurance company last year over this (Marsh) on my 993TT. They said if I dropped the value to less that what they considered to be fair value, then they would penalise me if they paid out by reducing the amount they would pay by the amount it was underinsured by. It seemed bonkers and might have been just the insurance sales person trying to make sure I kept the value up. I, like you, felt I was insuring the car for a value that the insurance company wouldn't have paid out when push came to shove, but I didn't change it in the end.

I know I should go to the grief to get an agreed value really...

Cheers

Roger

rft218 wrote:Hi Graham,

I had a weird conversation with my insurance company last year over this (Marsh) on my 993TT. They said if I dropped the value to less that what they considered to be fair value, then they would penalise me if they paid out by reducing the amount they would pay by the amount it was underinsured by. It seemed bonkers and might have been just the insurance sales person trying to make sure I kept the value up. I, like you, felt I was insuring the car for a value that the insurance company wouldn't have paid out when push came to shove, but I didn't change it in the end.

I know I should go to the grief to get an agreed value really...

Cheers

Roger

Unless I am misunderstanding something, that makes sense to me. If your car was previously insured for £100k (MV) and you thought it only worth £90k now and dropped the insurance cover accordingly, they would only cover you for the £90k. Having dropped the cover from £100k to £90k, you can't then try and claim market value is still £100k in teh even of a loss i.e. you underinsured it vs MV by £10k so you can't claim MV.

Seems reasonable enough to me.

The problem with insurance companies is that they are legalised shysters. When my Grandfather was insuring an agricultural building that was old and built with whinstone and lime he questioned the fee. He was told by insurer that if it was damaged it would cost more to reinstate than a modern built shed.
When his neighbours land rover ranaway and smashed a hole in it ,you guessed it. It was rebuilt with concrete blocks and cement. When questioning his insurer they were in total denial! Shysters!
I have also heard of people coming unstuck with values with buildings aswell. How many people get their steadings (or cars) revalued every year. If you had a 911 that was worth £80'000 in 2018 and it jumped up to £100'000 in2019. You have an accident and insurer say's you were 20% undervalued so we will pay you £60'000 minus 20% so you only get £48'000. If you think that is fair well I disagree.

Insurance is like gambling in that actuaries are employed to calculate risk for profit

The difference is you only 'win' when some schmo crunches your pride and joy. And no one ever got addicted to insurance

Yes it was the scenario that stichill99 says, so it was £90k, I wanted to insure for £80k. They said if it was written off and they thought it was worth £85k, i would get £80k - £5k which it was underinsured for = £75k.

I couldn't get my head around that

As someone that works in the industry for a company that tirelessly tries to ‘do the right thing’, I struggle with the examples above. In my experience (property, not motor mind);
- The sum insured selected by the customer is the policy limit for claims. I have never come across a
calculation being applied for under insurance, which renders a customer receiving less cover than they have paid for. It certainly would not pass our customer conduct tests
- Reinstatement is done on a like for like basis, accepting that a customer cannot be put in a better position than they were unless it is the only practical solution and agreed by all parties. Repairs have to be permanent and lasting, so again I would not expect a cheap repair in the wrong material to ever be offered. These days I would insist on the original sales call being pulled from the archive to verify what was and wasn’t offered at the point of sale, and reject the offered repair.

I get people have bad experiences occassionally, but those sort of experiences can’t exist within the current regulatory framework, and if they do there are escalation routes to resolve.

I just felt that f my 911 was stolen/recovered and the AV was £65K and they saw the car they would question the AV @ 65 and all manner of grief would follow.
Thus, today I have re-valued it to 50K, possibly market value or a tad above.

What my Bitza is worth I tried to evaluate in another post here, but really got nowhere, so I guess Hagerty would be in the same position.

You'd need to read the policy, but an agreed value is an agreed value, it's in the name.

If you say I'd like an agreed value of 80 and go through whatever valuation process is set out and the ins co agrees the value, then it's "agreed".

This is different from market value insurance. Again, the policy is key here. If the policy says they'll pay out the lower of the market value or the value you have stated that's fine But I don't think they do, the say market value or some such term.

Graham

Why don’t you submit the form on the PCGB website Graham, upload the photos and insure to that agreed value, whatever it is? In my experience the club has really stepped up their game on valuations and they are returned in 3 days or so.

I agree it is all a bit of a faff, but better than the alternatives if something happens…

I tried them about 5 years ago and it was hopeless.
The mods flawed them, response was poor and eventually petered-out so no results!

No harm in trying them again. I noticed they were doing them, but I dismissed it from previous experience.

The valuations are on Hagerty web site, and in the case of a dispute they could argue the valuations were there to see at the time of renewal...

Interesting that they valued it lower this year Graham. I switched to hagerty earlier this year and had the opposite experience, their valuer seemed to think it was worth more than my estimate.

If you went out today and had to purchase a fresh painted 1973 car with Motorsport mods and updated running gear from a dealer I’d say £65k would be what you need .

Maybe waiting around for a bargain on eBay etc that might pop up,sometime in the next 24months would be cheaper … but having to replace tomorrow imho you’d need £65k

It is worth reading the Hargerty descriptions for each level.
Remember mine has the sacrilege RHD conversion, non original interior, old non original engine etc too and the values drop like a stone.

Doubt any dealer we respect would have my 911 in a showroom of theirs!

Even in the boom years I thought 65K was cheeky.

My PCGB valuation arrived, so just for interest, £40K from the details I provided (same details I gave Hagerty.)