I have all my vehicles insured with All State and I've been happy with their prices and service to date. They really came through for me after my motorcycle accident, so I've had no reason to switch.

However... as I keep putting more and more money into my Evo, I'm starting to feel uninsured. My agent said that I can't get coverage for aftermarket parts beyond the $1000 that's already included. Well, I've blown through that long ago and soon I'll have close to $10K into the car.

So... do you guys have insurance that covers your (extensive) upgrades? If so, which company? If not, do any of you do some sort of supplemental insurance to cover those parts?

I'm mostly worried about theft and vandalism.

Mods: please move to appropriate "general" forum if this is not an appropriate thread. Thanks!

 

If you take a look at the cost of oem parts, such as an evo x rim, is nearly 1000 bucks brand new. You cant tell me you cant find a better aftermarket rim for less. Most of the time its cheaper to take a check and find the parts yourself. Cheaper, not always easier

 

I'm not sure I follow your logic. If the car is stolen, I'm getting the insurance's view of my car's depreciated value and then max of $1000. If I have $10K in aftermarket parts, I've lost all of that completely. I'm trying to protect my investment as much as possible.

 

Where I live there is there is a insurance company where you get to pick the number at which you value your car at. I mean the more you value it at the more per month. It becomes downright insane but it protects people like my uncle who has a $3000 rusty sleeper GTO with a $$25000 engine bay.
See if you can find a insurance co. like that around you.

 

You may have replaced stock parts with aftermarket parts, but the difference between the two will not meet 10k (aftermarket value - stock value). The other thing to consider is if the insurance company looks at those parts as off road parts or replacement parts vs investments.

 

Welcome to the world of cars---thats just the way it is. You can have a 2k car with 10k in parts but that doesnt make it worth 12k. The insurance company insures a car, one thats on the road. So they dont care if its bone stock or 100k of mods its simply a running car of a certain make and thats what they insure. If you can find someone other then an antique car insurance co to insure your parts---think about it. If they insure that extra 10k for lets say an additional 1k a year well, they are robbing you blind and after a few years the 10k in mods isnt worth 10k and you have spent several thousand more for nothing more in return due to depreciation. You need to be prepared to walk away at any time--see line 1 of you want to revisit the reasoning. Good Luck.

 

I don't carry anything extra even though a mini pot of gold has been spent on my car. Sure I MAY get a little more than normal pricing out of my car - but not by much and it's a much smaller market when the day comes I ever sell it. If something happens - it happens.

 

I'm an insurance agent
depends on the company. Progressive is the most liberal, the include 2500 and i thin you can ad up to 4,000.

Companies don't like insuring extra parts because there isn't much actuarial data about them (frequency of loss, totals, etc). If you don't drive it much, you can get all that stuff covered by a company like Haggerty-but-you must own a different vehicle as a daily driver.

For the most part, you're not going to find major carriers that will back it much.

Another thing to consider is the term "permanently installed". If you have, say, a $1000 subwoofer, you think of it as part of your car, right? Well...it's better to have it fall into your homeowner's insurance and just consider it "not permanently installed" in your car...since you could remove it...Homeowner's coverage is automatic and cheap. So if you're capped at 1000 for aftermarket losses, you'd want stereo gear, electronics, things like that, to be "not permanently installed" and fall under your homeowners. For the other stuff like intakes, exhaust, suspension, that would be under your auto insurance.

 

^ like he said. I'm with progressive and they cover up to 2500 with the comprehensive and collision coverage. Then I can add $1000 if i want for like 2 bucks a month.

 

If the car was in a wreck could you take all the parts you can off before it is written off?

 

I have Wawanesa and they covered my mods on my IX. As long as you have receipts of everything that is. They reimbursed me for everything.

That's what I did with my exhaust on my IX. Plus other bits and pieces here and there.

 

I appreciate all the feedback. All State is definitely capped at $1000. I'll look around to see if I can get any better coverage per your suggestions.

 

Couple other options to look at; renter's insurance or homeowner's insurance, depending upon your status there.

I had a specific discussion about this a while back (long before I bought my Evo) with a rep from USAA about my renter policy and aftermarket parts on my vehicles are covered to a certain extent by default. I have the option to increase that coverage if needed, but would pay a higher premium, of course.

Also covers things like if your radio gets stolen, etc. I have a feeling some homeowner's policies would have similar coverage levels or at least options to add that to your policy.

 

Step one is get the car appraised.

Step two is tell your insurance agent to calculate based on the appraised value.

Step Three is pay moar! (but sleep better at night )

(or save the money yourself in an 'escrow' direct deposit account (self-insure) the mods.)

 

The problem with that is if they have home insurance specifically, those types of policies typically have higher deductibles ($1,000 or higher), usually because the coverage applies to the dwelling as well... not all companies have lower home insurance deductibles than that, and if they do, the difference in premium is a lot. It contrasts to HO4 and HO6 (renters and condo) policies, which often have much lower deductibles available ($250 or so) for not that much more.

I know you can add coverage for aftermarket parts with Safeco. It's supposed to be more for stuff like wheels and/or electronics rather than performance parts, but I know of some people who included coverage for X-amount of additional equipment and made claims on losses for those performance parts when the car got stolen, though admittedly it was for simpler things like intake, exhaust, springs, etc. But I think their limit for that stuff is $5,000 anyway. Geico might also offer the coverage too, but there have been some threads in the past couple of years about how they're not as friendly about those things as they used to be.