[PureEnjoyment]

Anyone have experience with this? One of my buddies wants to add twin turbos to his Camaro SS and I told him he better look into the insurance effects of doing that before he dives in. I was just curious if anyone here might know. Thx!

 

[DESIREE]

All my insurance company knows, from the VIN number, is that my Mustang is a Cobra. They don't know anything about the aftermarket stuff, nor do they need to! So my insurance rate is just based on whatever they nail a Cobra with.
Of course I am over 25 years old with a squeaky clean driving record so they have no reason to look to closely.

 

[srt8man]

I'm not so sure you even want to tell the insurance company. It depends on your coverage and what you want to have covered in the event of a total loss. Unless the car is a total loss, they will have to repair it. If the car is a total loss, your mod money will be lost unless the supercharger hardware is covered. If you tell them about it, it will give them an excuse to raise your rates. I never reported my performance mods on my Mustang to my insurance company and I had a Procharger on it and a bunch of other aftermarket stuff.

 

[Erik]

My insurance company will not cover any kinds of performance mods. Not only does that mean they will not pay for it in an accident, they will also immediately cancel your policy if they find out, AND they will not cover you if you are in an accident if they find out you have modified it somehow. Gotta love it.

 

[rdmac]

Not to be a neh sayer. But I guess if you really read the fine print of your policy you may find exclusions. Like in an umbrella policy or home owners you can't collect if drugs are invloved you beat somebody up - I am paraphrasing there.

 

[srt8man]

My insurance company will not cover any kinds of performance mods. Not only does that mean they will not pay for it in an accident, they will also immediately cancel your policy if they find out, AND they will not cover you if you are in an accident if they find out you have modified it somehow. Gotta love it.

They have to cover you if you are in accident, but there may be some exclusions and special cases in some policies. Let's say you hit a deer (not your fault, comprehensive insurance), or somebody hits you from behind and they have no insurance (uninsured motorist), or you slide off the road in a snow storm (your fault, collision insurance). They don't have to cover your mods, but they have to repair everything else. Now if you put custom paint, and a bunch of other stuff, you are probably out of luck unless you paid for the extra coverage.

 

[Normgarry]

My insurance went from $220 a month on my 300 2.7L to $285 a month on my SRT8. If you add a mod that gives an otherwise slow car, massive amounts of speed, insurance policies will cover themselves by terminating your policy. In fact, when you get the photo inspection of your car done, they specifically ask if you will mod your car. I told my inspector NO...before adding 22" wheels. Had those wheels contributed to an accident, I am certain I woulda been dropped. That's one reason my SRT8 isn't getting any major mods. I could easily drop a supercharger in it, but as I see it, its already got more power than any street legal car ought to have.

 

[OoTLink]

photo inspection? I've never had pictures of my car taken lol.

 

[srt8man]

$285 a month :scared: That's crazy. I guess my insurance is low because I'm married, mid 40s, and have an accident-free record. I did get a couple speeding ticktets that I fought in court though.

Unless you have LOTS of damage, the claims guy isn't even going to pop the hood and notice a supercharger. If there are bad damages in the front of the car, then they will notice it when they look under the hood, but otherwise they would cut you a check and never notice. The insurance company cannot deny a claim because you have 22 inch rims. How can insurance prove the rims contributed? I doubt they wouldn't spend that much time and money investigating unless it were a BIG claim. What if you are in a parking lot and you back into another car? Insurance can't blame that on your rims and deny coverage.

 

[OoTLink]

It has me wondering too, I am 23 and have a 300c and my 100/300 insurance with pretty much everything (albeit a 1000 deductible!!) costs ~120 a month (ow). It used to be <$100 a month until this year (NO IDEA WHY!!!!) ><

That said, the highest insurance charge on my car is collision insurance. Comprehensive was cheap, and there wasn't more than a $100/year difference between 100/300 and 15/30 when it came to liability, but collision with a 1000 deductible costs me almost 800/year alone.

I wonder if it's because the 300 is expensive, or if with the large blind spots (and a stupid overconfident "experienced" driver) people with 300s keep running into other cars because "I didn't see em!"

F people and confidence. Out here, I see people that don't even slow for stop signs because they're so damn confident nobody's going to be coming around that corner they can't see.. haha.

 

[akuza]

$285 a month :scared: That's crazy. I guess my insurance is low because I'm married, mid 40s, and have an accident-free record. I did get a couple speeding ticktets that I fought in court though.

lol
my insurance for my 3.5 is $2834 for the year...im 22 with no accidents
i get 15% discount then when 25 get another discount [along with 5% per year]
so when im 25 it will be like 35% off

and be under $2000 finally LOL

 

[OoTLink]

You should shop around a little, if you've been driving over 3 years you can go check out Farmers and State Farm, Allstate, Progressive et all - I've found Farmers to be cheap, Allstate to be somewhat reasonable albeit more expensive (to my surprise), Geico was pretty reasonable too..

There's also smaller companies, I used Explorer Insurance for a while and they were terrific (both in claims and in billing lol).

 

[srt8man]

You guys are going to hate me for this. My insurance is $750 per year for my SRT8, and I have excellent coverage. I even have a zero deductible for comprehensive. I've had too many chips on front of car and broken windows from little pebbles flying off the road. I want them fixed, and the cost to repair them is typically less than normal deductible. I also live in deer country and have had too many close calls to take a chance at paying a deductible for something that wasn't my fault. I've been with State Farm since I was 16 years old. I have shopped around and can't find insurance [with the same coverage] cheaper anywhere. It helps to have homeowners with them and multi-car, accident-free discounts. Be sure to shop around for the best price, but beware of the "create your own price" policies!

 

[OoTLink]

Oh I believe you, the insurance my father had when he was alive was with State Farm, covered everything, had something like a $100 deductible and cost $80/month.

Those "Create your own price" policies are insane because it's just a sliding scale of taking away stuff. Anyone who gets a car without collision/comprehensive is insane (unless it's a car worth less than the deductible!)

 

[akuza]

I am in Canada....lol

 

[Erik]

They have to cover you if you are in accident, but there may be some exclusions and special cases in some policies. Let's say you hit a deer (not your fault, comprehensive insurance), or somebody hits you from behind and they have no insurance (uninsured motorist), or you slide off the road in a snow storm (your fault, collision insurance). They don't have to cover your mods, but they have to repair everything else. Now if you put custom paint, and a bunch of other stuff, you are probably out of luck unless you paid for the extra coverage.

No, they don't have to cover you at all. They ask the question when you insure with them about whether or not your car is modified. If it is modified they won't take your policy. If you modify it afterwards, then they will not cover you at all. So if you have an accident, and your car is modified, they effectively treat it as fraud.

 

[jamesdtuttle]

You guys are going to hate me for this. My insurance is $750 per year for my SRT8, and I have excellent coverage. I even have a zero deductible for comprehensive. I've had too many chips on front of car and broken windows from little pebbles flying off the road. I want them fixed, and the cost to repair them is typically less than normal deductible. I also live in deer country and have had too many close calls to take a chance at paying a deductible for something that wasn't my fault. I've been with State Farm since I was 16 years old. I have shopped around and can't find insurance [with the same coverage] cheaper anywhere. It helps to have homeowners with them and multi-car, accident-free discounts. Be sure to shop around for the best price, but beware of the "create your own price" policies!

It depends VERY much on where you live. I pay about $2500 to insure my SRT8 and my Lincoln Town Car. Zero tickets.

But I live in Houston. We have oodles of uninsured (read ILLEGAL) drivers with no license, no insurance and an old beater barely roadworthy, if that.

 

[srt8man]

No, they don't have to cover you at all. They ask the question when you insure with them about whether or not your car is modified. If it is modified they won't take your policy. If you modify it afterwards, then they will not cover you at all. So if you have an accident, and your car is modified, they effectively treat it as fraud.

I can understand if you put a twin turbo kit on your car with a parachute on the back and your parachute fails to stop you because you were going 200 mph, but if you change your wheels or put some performance mods like intake, exhaust, it would be a real stretch to say you are commiting fraud. I would expect they would have to PROVE that the modification was the reason for the accident. If you hit a deer, it has nothing to do with the mods. Period. Especially if the only thing damaged was the body of the car. They would never even know what was under the hood, and in my opinion that is not fradulent in any way.

 

[Normgarry]

I can understand if you put a twin turbo kit on your car with a parachute on the back and your parachute fails to stop you because you were going 200 mph, but if you change your wheels or put some performance mods like intake, exhaust, it would be a real stretch to say you are commiting fraud. I would expect they would have to PROVE that the modification was the reason for the accident. If you hit a deer, it has nothing to do with the mods. Period. Especially if the only thing damaged was the body of the car. They would never even know what was under the hood, and in my opinion that is not fradulent in any way.

Insurance companies are out to keep as much money as they can. They already know most of us are going to mod these cars and their thinking is, why should we pay for damaged rims; why should we pay for stolen rims; why should we cover this idiot if he upgrades to 22"s but didn't upgrade his brakes and he slams into a bunch of school kids?

Insurance companies are out to keep their money.

I also love the fact the car records 2 seconds of data if the airbags are deployed so the insurer can know you were pulling .90 G's when you slammed into those preschoolers.

 

[srt8man]

I think most insurance companies want to keep their customers, and if they treat their customers like trash, they will lose customers. I've been with the same insurance company for over 30 years, and I've NEVER had an accident that was my fault. I have made some claims though, but only for things like a chipped or broken windshield and minor chips on the front facia from being peppered by road debris and on one occassion a retread that flew off a truck in front of me on the highway. They would never have the expertise to know I modded my car with the Predator and a t-stat, nor would these things have anything to do with an accident. If someone steals my wheels, the same thing applies. It doesn't matter if they are the OEM wheels or if I bought aftermarket ones. A car MUST have wheels to drive, and insurance covers replacement costs (up to cost of OEM wheels, unless you notify insurance of mod), providing you have receipts.