ikeing

if you live in ontario, and are thinking about serious mods to your car, you might just want to buy an SRT instead. if you disclose the mods to your car, the insurance companies are cancelling the policy....and if you don't disclose the mods, they can deny coverage in the event of a claim. here's a forum on the subaru board:

http://www.toronto-subaru-club.com/c...gi?act=SF;f=25

looks pretty serious. even a 50 year old, top rated driver, had his policy cancelled when he disclosed his miata had an aftermarket supercharger.

edit: there's a very good discussion here:

http://www.mco.org/forums/topic.asp?...03&whichpage=1

if i got the gist, state farm is sending out warnings to its policy holders saying that if you have any undisclosed mods, they can deny coverage (but they're vague about what coverage they're talking about...third party liability (ie a $3M lawsuit cause of a fatal accident) or comprehensive (ie the value of your car if it's stolen).

so they scare people into disclosing their mods, and then they immediatetly cancel the policy.

so if you don't disclose your mods, you won't get replacement value if your car is stolen. if you do disclose your mods, you run the risk of having your policy cancelled.

but the key issue is, if you don't disclose your mods, can the insurance company deny third party liability coverage? don't know, but the quebec govt bulletin quoted in the link says performance upgrades themselves are not a problem:

""While not definitive, QC certainly allows:

- "Augmenter la puissance du moteur." = "Increase the power of the motor."

Other things that are allowed:
- wings
- exhausts (made for roadway use - ie no 'racing' exhausts, so most should be 'okay' in QC)
- changing tires (diameter must remain similar, mentions nothing of width), etc..
- windshield tint, cannot come down more than 15cm from the top of the front windscreen.

But in the list of things that are NOT allowed include :
- cut/heated springs, car being 'too stiff', tires touching any part of the body, etc.
- reducing the capacity of the braking system (eeek!?)
- race tires, or tires that protrude from the bodywork
- tinted headlight covers, etc.
- changing the colour of the headlight/taillights etc to colours that do not conform to the QC Code.
- modification of original seatbelts including anchor points
- modification of the windshield wipers to sweep a smaller area (ie, no race style 1 wiper cars allowed)
- mirror window tint is a no-no.
- tinted windows, must allow at least 70% light pass through.
- remove or deactivate airbags""

the situation might not be as bad as i first thought. no guarantees, but it may be that undisclosed mods affect comprehensive coverage, but not third party liability coverage.

Danno

iTrader: (4)

You know how rental companies insure themselves? I wonder if someone could start there own insurance company strickly covering modded cars. The key would have to be policies on a car by car basis...ie if your car is for show and not for street (underglow, figerglass interior, sound system...you know you can just tell) then you pay this set amount based on what is done. if your car has an exhaust and intake you pay this much....maybe even do it on a point system...different mods aculmiate for different points and this would reflect on what has to be paid anually (obviously a driving record could increase or decrease these costs),

you would have to figure out the adverage amount of claims, how many claims, how many people you have insured, and some other details...all in all i think it would be possible...
any thoughts on this?

Danno

iTrader: (4)

I looked into this because i was wondering myself. I talked to a claims adjuster (they have the final say on weather yoe get covered or not) (this one was a friend of the family)

What he told me was that there are only 2 senarios where this would happen. the first is if your insurace company requests discloser (I know RBC is like this) and tells you at the begining that you are not allowed to mod your car and you do anyways. They could walk away.

The second is if your racing...weather track or street timed or not if you are racing your insurance company may walk away.

Im with Pilot insurance and he told me that they are good about stuff like that.

I was told that you can go as far as turbo and spray and they will still cover you.

In the above senarios he stated that he has only heard of cases like that and its very rare...both cases the insurance company was sued... what is more likely to happen is that the insurance company will cover you in these events (the mods and such) but may not renue you after that.


so bottom line... talk to someone in your insurance company (dont tell them who you are and speak hypothetcally) and find out everything you can..

dont worry beccause 99% of the time your insurance will cover you the other 1% they told you right from the start (but they still have to)