MBTC

Forgive my ignorance here, as I have not significantly customized a car since the 80's, and the car was already 8+ years old with 100k+ miles on it when I did.

My question is regarding insurance: if you invest significantly in mods (let's say for sake of example you buy a $30k car and put another $7k into it), and a few days after you've got everything perfect, someone T-bones you, totaling it.

Aren't you kind of screwed when it comes to the total insurance amount you'll receive? I don't think any insurance company is going to let you pay premiums on the $30k amount but receive a claim for $37k, so it's basically throwing close to 20% of the value of the car out the window. Not to mention taking a bath on resale even if it's never wrecked.

Please enlighten me.

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

There are insurance companies offering policies that cover such additions. Not sure what they're called, but I read about plenty of those with show cars having such coverages.

LongSword

Like Gville350 said. I believe it's called something to the degree of, Special equipment endorsement, Custom parts and equipment coverage, or something like that on your policy. You add this on, or get a separate policy for the special equipment. You list your special equipment, amount they are worth, pay the policy, and that's that.

But, most people who modify their car, do so knowing that it's basically throwing money away.

JdSwiper

iTrader: (4)

It's called a rider!!

MBTC

Has anyone here actually done this? The reason I ask is that as I understand it most insurance policies allow the company to calculate value using their own algorithm, and they use that in order to do things like straighten wrecked parts to look like original rather than actually replace with original. In other words just because you spent $7k on custom parts doesn't mean they owe you complete replacement of those same parts, they have a right to go find a used / refurb (or in the worst case discount insurance scenario, aftermarket equivalent).

So it you spent $7k on mods, how much of that value is recoverable after you've been rolling on it for 1.5 years and you get t-boned?

604GSE21

i was told by my insurance company's estimator that any parts that is bolted to your car is covered, as long as you have picture that shows it is bolted to your car...

B16da9

iTrader: (7)

A lot of insurance companies offer this coverage, however what they dont tell you is that they will only pay to replace it if said items are "stolen". Durring a total claim loss they use a diffrent type of benchmark for these parts and you basically get screwed.

MBTC

This sounds more like the insurance companies I know...