Hot Rods State Farm dropped me from their antique insurance

You may be in for a shock if you have a claim. I had Grundy for years and only had one claim. Long story short, I now have Hagerty.

 

State Farm is cheap,
They are picky about who and what they insure. Dropping you for lack of paint isn't really what happened. They aren't going to insure it while you take 3 yrs to paint it. That's what happened. A significant part of a cars value is its finish, why insure the value if it isn't there ?

 

I have Hagerty, had it for many years. They paid a claim once with lighting speed and no problems! Great company

 

Insurance companies are parasites, but a necessary evil I guess.
I wonder how many young men in the late forties, fifties, had their old jalopies insured.
I know it's law to be insured, but it's not down here.
I got ripped by a company years ago, and I've winged it ever since.

 

Bruce, send em a letter, stating you were going to drop them, on account of the paint on their building, isn't as nice as the paint on their rivals building.

 

fine for repairing your ride if it is damaged - but, if someone gets injured from an accident involved with your ride can be liable for more money than you could ever imagine.

 

I know it.
Life's a gamble, I'm very careful, but that's not always enough.
I just hate thieves.

 

Actually our state laws in the USA requires us to have liability insurance. You/we cause damage to another vehicle or property, the insurance co understands that and pays just for the other car/property. But if you want full coverage for your vehicle, too, that's when the insurance co balks because they can't wrap their mind around it. You believe you have gold and they assume you have junk. The true value might be somewhere between the two beliefs. It's an adversarial relationship even before there's a claim. What they don't understand easily, they tend to sweep out the door.

Personally I would hire a professional, third party appraiser to give me an independent statement of value in writing. With that I could put a lot of gray area questions to rest, both for establishing a value level for coverage and for a payoff if need be. It's not iron clad but it gives you a fairly big club to beat them with if you have to.

 

what does paint have to do with it? are you talking full coverage? my cars have never been that expensive. a couple of them would be worth something now but they were not when I owned them. (70 Z/28 and a GTO Judge) I just get the liability. My 61 Dodge only costs me like 30 bucks a year, I have a mileage limit, but I only put around town in it anyways, probably a couple hundred miles a year if that.

 

We're required to have liability insurance. But full coverage, that's something that the house (insurance companies) will always win in the long run. So don't pay for it, maybe you'll get lucky.

I had to pay for some parts to fix my 1959 truck when I wrecked it 12 years ago. That's the only loss I've had, owning "hot rods", "collector cars", etc for the past 30+ years. I have not paid for full coverage on any of them, just liability.

 

Anpac here. No mileage limit. Can't be a daily driver, but you can drive it as much as you want.


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Technically no, it's not. What most if not all states here require is "proof of financial responsibility". There's different ways of doing that - Insurance is just one of them. You can post a $10,000 bond for example, or put a certain amount on deposit. Course that's why most people buy insurance, because they can't afford to lay out that much scratch.

The only requirement though is for liability - to pay the medical bills for the other guy you injured, at your fault. Or for property damage to the other guy. I'd be surprised if NZ let's people scoot around without liability ins. Maybe. These laws go way back, since the start of motoring basically.

Hot rodders of old might not have had comprehensive or full coverage, but driving without liability insurance has always been a pretty big deal. Moreso than no license, really. I don't carry full coverage on my old truck, but I'm covered for liability three ways to sunday. It's cheap insurance. It doesn't take much to max out the average states mandatory "minimum liability" policy payments. They are ridiculously low, because medical costs are so high. The ins. co. writes a check for the limits of the policy and they're done with it.

What you don't want, is the other guys coming after your personal assets for the excess, which is what they can do if an accident is your fault.

Comprehensive is a whole nother ball o wax.

 

@Truck64 the NZ govt has talked about compulsory liability insurance, but have never made it law.

 

I think there are one or maybe two states here that don't require it. For state mandatory minimum liability, in my HAMB compliant vehicle, was $11 a month. Worth it to me. It's about double that now, because I increased the policy limits closer to medical costs in real life. Ya know, say ya hit a bus full of nuns, and it takes a bridge out, so now the danged DOT gets involved, and it in turn falls on a train, that just happens to be carrying nuclear waste. It gets complicated.

 

I have Farmers, but the same deal. All the cars (the ones on the road) are like that, a little more costly but NO limits. These are my ONLY cars, I don't own a newer car past the '64 panel. I've had the same broker since the early 90's and he's in the bay area (and his kids are taking over the biz). I did have one claim years ago where my first '60 El Camino was totaled on the freeway and I only had liability back then. He felt bad that all I could get was the max of $2500 for uninsured motorist, I told him it's ok since that's all I was paying for............that and I only paid $600 for the Elco (which never came up).

 

Try ObamaCar affordable gas act with pre-existing paint coverage and libel-ity insurance. A-greedy Value with daily driveway polishy and no salemen commision as long as the windows are clean. We aim to please, you aim too, please. You want to keep your mechanic, you can keep your mechanic. You want white walls, you can have white walls. delete at will...your will is Will's will. signed Bennie Fisherie.

 

Same with me. We saved a ton of money when we switched to Hagerty.

 

State Farm did the same to me on my Model A. It had
faded paint and was "incomplete"( I took the fenders off of it). I called my agent and he gave me a name and number of a lady to call. She was, to put it nicely, clueless. I have all my insurance with them, and have had a couple of claims, which they paid with no problems. On the Model A I just cancelled that policy, I was trying to sell it anyway. I had Hagerty on an O/T muscle car, cheap enough but never had a claim.

 

Wow 50+years of owning HOT RODs, antique collector's, common cars, cycles, airplanes -n- boats, nary a problem.
Mixed bag, some full coverage , most minimum. And 2 different companies for it all, home, cars-n- crops.

 

The only insurance company I ever had was State Farm from 1967 when I got my license until 2015 when the local agent started raising our rates every 3 months without an explanation.
I switched to Auto -owners and never even got a letter from State Farm thanking me or asking me to come back. They have no loyalty to long term customers.

 

Kiwijeff.I was wondering about that after I got off the phone with them???Bruce.

 

Wrayman, the thing is we have had our house insurance and all of other cars insured with the for the past 20 years.Bruce.

 

INVISIBLEKID. Thats just it. I drove the car there and they took pictures of everything and said ok we are good. Bruce.

 

Jalopy Joker.I never had a problem with any of my antique car with state farm for the last 20 years till now.Bruce.

 

Can insurance companies and loyalty be used in the same sentence?

 

tb33and a 3rd.That was the plan anyway to paint her.Bruce.

 

Flat Six Fix.I have an excellent driving record and no points.Bruce.

 

Nevermind that insurance. Just blow it up. I'm going to give you some fantastic insurance. The best insurance you've ever seen. It will cover everything. Big league. It will be magnificent.


Until then I have Hagerty. 1 car, 2 motorcycles, 1 sidecar. Full coverage. Drive 24/7/365. $350 year. Agreed value. Can't be beat!

 

I have a theory. The Insurance companies are owned by the mob. Who else could force you to pay for protection?

 

My two cents as an insider with a degree in Financial management. The current craze of r$t rods has NOT gone unnoticed by the insurance companies (or state governments) . The number of accidents by unsafe home made pieces if sh#t has started to bring the type of attention we don't want. Local case, at the end of a car show an idiot with a rat rod model A truck when to lay some rubber, lost control (due to rear end separating from frame, crap welds) and totaled a couple cars and almost killed a few people. In their limited car knowledge the insurance companies think any car without paint is a rot rod thus a potential HUGE liability.
PS. Was licensed as an insurance agent, real estate agent, etc working at an accounting firm til I got home one day from my cube, looked around my apartment and realized "Holy Crap, I've got a lot of ammunition". Ran away and joined the truck drivers union (teamsters) and been very happy for the last 30 years .