Hello, Having lived on the coastline on the Westcoast, I can attest to the ruling for insurance. What the insurance company asks, they are protecting your investment and they don’t want to pay for damages if something is there to ruin a body, parts or paint. We had one car in a garage and the other stayed outside in the everyday salt air infusion. But, when we traveled in Florida's coastal area from Miami to West Palm Beach for a week one Summer, I can see why a covered garage is necessary. When we showered and then went out to go to breakfast, we instantly felt ourselves being covered with moisture. It was not the dry feeling of a Westcoast beach environment until the Westerly fog/moisture rolls into play. In Florida, it was a normal weekday morning with the sun out and looking to be a nice day of a road adventures. But, it felt wet. We soon got acclimated to the moist feeling and then, we were like locals. Ha! So, pay the insurance if it is covering your car and property. But you have a head start on getting the problem solution. After all, it is your build and why leave it to the elements to go the other direction? We can see the insurance company’s purpose. There are other insurance companies around, but if you have been with that company for a long time, other insurance companies cannot match your longevity prices. Jnaki If you value your car, no car cover left outside for days and weeks is going to protect your investment in the long run. Rust never sleeps… as we have all heard at one time or another. So, if you have a covered car port, you are half way to an enclosed garage. Get it done and save your hot rod. growing up in Long Beach One of our So Cal house purchases was one house that had spaces for two cars, but there were two sides missing for the parking spaces of our cars. It was built on a sideways slope and the level garage had a retaining wall for stability. So, technically, it was a carport, but a two sided one. So, for the time being, we thought we were above the salt air infusion high up on a hill. But no one ever under estimates Mother Nature. I got tired of wiping down my wife’s new sporty car and when I was ready to drive the 327 powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery, I had to thoroughly clean all of the windows before venturing out. The salt air moisture had crept up the hillside and coated our two cars. So, we bought one cover for my wife’s sporty car. My sedan delivery was the blocking wall for the salt air movement. When we could afford the next cover, it was a full cover for the sedan delivery. We stayed there for 6 years, but it was a chore to clean each car, even under the car covers. It was just the whole area that was near the beach. If we had stayed in that home, we would have enclosed the remaining one wall and a door. Moisture or not. If the question is asked or not, it is an insurance question of you versus the elements in Florida. So, yes, get that carport covered on all four sides and then there is no need for a car cover, inside. Be one step ahead of the insurance company as most will have similar rules. after all, they protect you after a calamity, so they want the marbles all in a row, so to speak... YRMV
I'd say that is a question for the insurance company. Maybe there's a discount for a garage kept car?
I bet any of the companies will insure it even if it's not in a locked garage. It's just gonna cost you a whole bunch more.
Try auto owners insurance they do classic cars at stated value and are reasonable don’t know about the garage though
I, like Jim, have liability only on my old cars. Every year they try to get me to go with different insurance but when I explain how I use them they concede. Insurance companies don’t like it when you put a lot of miles on cars.
The collector car insurance policies count on you valuing and caring for your car and not using it, that is why they are cheaper. Their statistics must show a difference being in a garage. Some policies even state that the car must be visible to you at all times when out of the garage. It's in the fine print. Hard to do at some shows and hard to do when eating dinner at a restaurant after the show. You need to remember insurance is sold for them to make money as well as to protect the car. Like Squirrel. I only keep liability on my cars. If I wreck my car, it is on me. If someone else wrecks my car I hope they have coverage. I also have no cars that I feel are worth more than an average new car.
Try the Auto Club. In the past I have had all of my cars (driver & collector) with them but I don't know how they would react to your problem. Charlie Stephens
Directly from Grundy's website, paragraph two talks about a garage : How Can I Use My Car? Grundy wants you to enjoy your car, not keep track of mileage like some programs with limitations. Therefore, we give you unlimited miles for pleasure driving and in collector car-oriented activities. It is even OK if occasionally you drive your collector car to work to show it off to friends. However, your collector car must not be used as a daily driver. We require you and all licensed drivers in your household to have a modern car for everyday use. When you have your car at home, it must be kept in an enclosed, secure garage when not in use. If you are away from home on extended outings your car is fully protected if you must park it outside, for example in a hotel parking lot. Grundy coverage includes Trip Interruption that reimburses you for hotel and repair costs in the event of a breakdown, and we also reimburse you for towing and labor charges up to $250. You can count on Grundy as you cruise.
An average new car is multiple tens of thousands of dollars. If you can afford to lose that in an instant due to some inerrant or distracted driver, or due to theft or fire, if that makes economic sense to you than fine, that's why there are choices. I don't have collector car insurance on my cars, just regular old car insurance, it's not expensive. But then I'm not a teenager, and my cars only get a couple thousand miles on them per year. And with multiple cars, and policies, the discounts pile up.
Next I asked the web, "Can you insure a classic car without a garage ?" and came up with this : Classic Car Insurance Without A Garage Can you get classic car insurance with no garage? No! Most car insurance companies require classic cars to be kept in a garage or storage facility to qualify for classic car insurance. So rather than give you some guesses, I chose to try to help you out a different way. All I can say is good luck to you.
I already posted that's who I use, and they do not require the car be kept in a garage, or that it must be in sight, or that you can only use the car for special events, or any other limitations not placed on any other car. They do ask about annual miles and will adjust the premiums based on that, but for many of us that's not a whole lot.
I have insurance with State Farm for the last 6 years at a agreed "vehicle value' with "limited use antique/classic restrictions".
This is all fine and well as long as it's crystal clear what the insured value is and doesn't depreciate over time. My buddy just went through this with American Family Ins. with his 1951 Cadillac that got totaled and it wasn't pretty. Like they say, you find out how good your insurance is when you actually have to use it. Which is a bad time to find out it's crap-o-la.
I think what this thread shows is a lot of people don't seem to actually know what their insurance covers and what the limitations are on their policies.
And as I also posted, when the car was involved in a collision they responded exceptionally well, I couldn't have asked for more, even waived the deductible. And yes, there is an agreed value on the car, and it doesn't depreciate over time.
Having just liability is just fine, I do it on beat up driver trucks But....if your car is smacked by one of the many uninsured drivers...Or even if they have insurance their company will or may only offer a small percentage of the cars worth..Then you choice is the courts with no guarantee you'll get a dime ...Or just walk away from from it...
my American Modern collector policy not only wanted pictures of cars but also the garage space to park them.I am not allowed to drive them to work.
Since my old cars are my daily drivers eight months of the year it’s the only way I can have them insured… no collector insurance company will touch them
Yep. The hardest battle we ever fought with an insurance company concerning a classic car was with American Family Insurance classic car coverage on my son's car covered by them. His car had Agreed Value coverage instead of Stated Value. The policy was 3 or 4 years old. The car was caught in a flash flood, submerged up to an inch from the top of the roof. Had I not had experience dealing with insurance companies before, it would have been much worse. First they were telling him the "car might not be worth as much as it was when the policy was written." Then they were talking about a him having a recent appraisal from one of their "qualified" appraisers. I called BS. The car was written as an Agreed Value policy and they had renewed the policy without requiring an updated appraisal. Since the premium was paid, they owed him the Agreed Value. They kept telling my son the "car may not be worth what the policy was written for" And I kept telling them it didn't matter, the car was a total loss, and they had agreed with its value when they renewed the Agreed Value policy. Then they wanted my son to prove the car was totaled. It was a Flood Damaged car, according to this state, a car involved with a flood is totaled at 35% of its value (I can't remember the exact % right now, but it is considerably less then collision damage). Motor damage, transmission damage, complete car wiring, and interior. With quick numbers we exceeded 50% of the agreed value and stopped. They were insisting on the full total value, and proof of our numbers, and were still pushing the car may not have had the value it was insured for. Even his agent was getting mad at them. We were well past 2 months after the event. We told the company we were going to call the IL Insurance Commissioner. They told us that wouldn't make any difference. They were wrong. The Insurance Commissioner must have placed a phone call to American Family, my son got a call back in a couple days with an offer slightly above the Agreed Value amount. The next challenge was my son wanted to buy the car back (we got it out of the flood and had started cleaning it up. by that point. Early on they offered him the opportunity to by the car back, but now they were telling him the scrap value of his 57 4 door Dodge station wagon was over $10,000 (very near what they kept telling us the car may not be worth). My son told them that was great, they were dumb founded. He told them he had a parts wagon that hadn't been in a flood so if his flood car was worth $10,000 his parts car should be as well, and he wanted proof where they got that scrap value price from. Suddenly, they had a reasonable buy back number, but now they were telling him they couldn't sell the flood car back to him. We called the Insurance Commissioner again to see if that was fact or not. We were informed the no buy back rule did not apply to vehicles over 10 years old (well past that) unless the company had a no buy back policy, but since they had offered him the chance to buy it back, that rule also did not apply. The Insurance Commissioner wanted my son to file a written complaint, but he didn't. I would have. After that 2nd call, American Family was very cooperative. My son had his check in a couple days. They did tell him he had to send them his title, but when my son asked them if he needed to call the Insurance Commissioner again, they decided he could just keep his title. They did say they were not going to cover his car anymore. My son's response was "No Kidding. You are absolutely correct." If your classic car coverage is not Agreed Value, the company is going to screw you if they can. If you think they have given you a raw deal, or are not dealing in good faith, call your states Insurance Commissioner, they are there to help you deal with insurance companies, but you have to know what your policy says. Every time it renews, they can, and do change things in your policy with only that policy update page you don't ever read. When you make that 1st payment on the policy renewal, you are agreeing with the changes, weather you read about them or not.
The insurance doesn't have to be collector car insurance, just plain ol' regular car insurance like people carry on their brand new and used cars, they do issue that for cars built in the HAMB era.
They kept telling my son the "car may not be worth what the policy was written for" I would have agreed and said you're right, it's worth more as it has appreciated in value.
Yes and they go by book value for what they deem a car of that year is worth…which is virtually nothing, with an appraisal they said they may take it into account.
For those of you thinking about Hagerty Insurance. State Farm can now write collector car policies underwritten by them. My dad has had Hagerty for years and been very happy. Since all my home and auto is with State Farm and my Agent is one of my closest friends I am going this route.
In my case we have an agreed upon value. BTW, what is a book value for say any car of the HAMB era? KBB doesn't go back that far. Hagerty on their website says a 1957 Dodge D100 1/2 ton pickup in "Good Condition" has a value of $30,000. You don't think that's a fair value? JD Power puts the value at a low of $19,500 up to a high of $97,300 with an average retail of $39,800. Seems like pretty fair valuations to me.
I daily drive my stuff so any specialty ins. won't cover it. State Farm does insure them at a stated value in a regular use policy. There may be many stipulations that I'm unaware of because I'm a long time policy owner with multi lines????
Pretty much everything after a certain age is worth $500 to our insurance companies. Like I said you can try to show more value through invoices and appraisals, then hope the decide to give you more. I suppose the answer is to have a policy with restrictions or not drive them. Both of which I refuse to do. I enjoy them and don’t worry much about what if.
I agree! Liability insurance coverage is based on fact, and falls under the protection of the State's Insurance Commissioner. You buy XXX amount of liability coverage and the insurance companies have to provide XXX amount of coverage as is standard in the industry. When you buy XXX coverage, companies A, B & C would all have to pay the same amount per accident. Stated value is what you state the value of the vehicle is at the time the policy was written. After the 1st renewal, the company can (and does) "adjust" the amount they will pay out in the event of a totaled vehicle. That amount is usually lower then the original stated value. The company, at its discretion can reduce the stated value because of age, wear and tear, or general depreciation of the vehicles condition due to time. The term "Stated value" is the insurance company's way to determine how much they view the value of the car was before the damage occurred. It would be your responsibility to keep current on the value of the vehicle in accordance to the company's policy. Because the Stated Value is based on each company's published terms within the policy itself, any decision made by the company is outside of the Insurance Commissioner's ability to protect you, as long as the company follows its rules established by the company as spelled out in the policy. If the policy says it will devalue the car 10% every year (that is probably extreme, but proves the point), its been 5 years since the policy was written, and you have paid the premium, guess what? The value of your car is now 50% of what the original Stated Value, I'm betting the premium hasn't lowered to match the current value they will pay out. But your company covered your classic car. As for the "value" of any old car according to most insurance would be the average value of the average condition of the specific model year vehicles that are driven by the general public. What value would a 48 Plymouth of average condition, that would be driven by the general public, be? $500 - $1,000? It would be my responsibility to have current proof of the value of my 48 Plymouth, and that proof would have to be acceptable by the insurance company rules covering such stuff. The rules of an approved appraisal are all over the board, and can be quite expensive. An approved appraisal from last year might not show how much that car's condition may have been expected to have diminished in the last year. A 1948 model year old car daily driven could diminish in condition pretty fast in a year's time. This brings it back up to the stated value of a car.
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