Insurance for a semi daily driver.

My collector cars are insured for normal usage by American Alternative Insurance Corporation (NAIC number 19720). You might inquire with them if they would cover your needs. USAA covers my modern cars and after many years of covering all my cars, USAA offered recommendation for the older cars via what I now use. I had found that prominent classic car insurers did not cover unrestricted, normal usage.

 

Traveler's might work.

 

Hate to say this, but whichever company underwrites Porsche Insurance might do this.

When I bought my ‘93 911 last year, I needed agreed value coverage for obvious reasons, and it was my only car at the time. Hagerty, Grundy, et al wouldn’t touch it. Porsche did, and the rate was actually lower than the crappy Geico policy I had in the interim.

Worth a try.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app

 

So who is the company?

EDIT... looks like Mile Premier LLC is the underwriter, but a quick search shows they are only available in certain states for mileage policies

 

CHUBB wrote me an agreed upon value policy that covers everything except acts of terrorism and tracking the car. I’m free to drive it as I please when I please. The underwriter is everything in my experience and I’m happy that both parties have done well by me.

 

Why? I have my daily driver TR insured by State Farm (along with my other cars and house). To me, the "bad idea" is getting a lower-cost, restricted policy and then violating the restrictions.

 

I’m sorry to hear of your troubles finding an agent. If you cannot find someone locally you can shoot me PM and I can ask my agent about writing an out of state policy. He has done some interesting things in the insurance world and may be able to help if all else fails.

 

I think that you can still get an agreed value if willing to pay an appropriate premium (although might take hassling with a 3rd party appraisal). ANY/EVERY insurance company will low ball you .

 

I tried, but the usual candidates -- State Farm, Progressive, etc. -- wouldn't.

 

A new customer out-of-the-blue for a single car = yeah, that's difficult. Were/are you a long-term, multi-policy, minimal-claim customer of those companies? I think that can make a big difference when it comes to exotics/agreed value (I've had an initial positive vibe from State Farm for doing this on a restomod that I've got under-construction as long as it appraises out OK)...

 

[QUOTE="Steve Magnusson. ANY/EVERY insurance company will low ball you .[/QUOTE]
Not the case with an agreed value policy.

 

Not the case with an agreed value policy.[/QUOTE]
That comment was with respect to a "standard policy".

 

You don’t really know till you file a major claim — totaled or stolen. For a traditional policy, I believe the insurance company pays whatever their algorithm dictates.

It’s fine for a daily driver, but for them a Testarossa is just a used car from the 1980s. One with very high accident repair costs…

I had agreed value with Chubb for my ‘56 Porsche and it was a zero hassle settlement.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app

 

I don't know if any of the other mainstream insurers are doing this, but AAA, in California at least, has agreed-upon value classic car insurance just like Hagerty and Grundy. I remember the numbers were pretty similar to what I was paying at Hagerty so I didn't bother making a change.

It has indeed always been conventional wisdom that you'll never get properly compensated for a valuable classic car if you're involved in a bad accident, or a total loss or theft, while being covered in a normal policy.

But… but when I give this some extra thought, even though it's not an agreed value policy, Geico/Allstate/etc still do have to follow some reasonable guideline about the car's value. I wonder if the use the blue book? I mean, it would be pretty tough for them to make a unilateral decision that a car that can be proven to have an average value of $200,000 is not worth 200,000.

And of course it costs considerably more to insure a classic car on the normal policy.

The big problem is if you have a rare version of an existing model that has extra value because of .... low mileage, that Keith Moon owned it, you just spent $100,000 on your $200,000 car to repair it, has a rebuilt engine, etc. etc. That of course is the beauty of the agreed-value policies that the vintage car insurers offer. You still have to sell them on why your particular 911 is so special and you want a policy that's 30% over the "Hagerty price guide" 911 cost, but they do listen, and it seems like they do typically write the policy.

I take the risk (and pay the additional cost) of having some of my vintage cars on my normal policy, because they are used as daily drivers occasionally - and (key point) not garaged. This is a restriction with the hagerty's and grundy's of the world that annoys me more than anything, because I have multiple vehicles. I have personally tried to get some middle ground on the garage requirement with the argument that I have a home that is fully fenced and gated, and the cars can be parked in an area that cannot be seen from the street. But both companies gave me a very immediate, and unwavering "NO" on this issue. I even asked a hypothetical of if I lived in a gated property inside a gated community and it was still, "No"!

Jarrod, your biggest issue is that you don't have any other "normal" car to take the heat off of the Testarossa. It could literally be worth it to you to buy a "normal" car which officially is your "daily driver." Because you're in the worst situation of anyone replying on your post because you can't even get a Hagerty policy without having an official "daily driver".

And it doesn't mean it has to be a 2022 Lexus. For the longest time, my official daily driver was an early '00's Suburban 2500. Until two years ago when I upgraded to a 2013. Which is funny when you think about it, because Hagerty would insure a 2005 Ferrari!

Another huge mountain to overcome is if you commute to a job every day - and your only car is a classic car.

It was mentioned in the replies that Grundy was really hard-core about maintaining extremely narrow usage parameters for their cars, but hagerty is not like that in my experience. I got into an accident in '94 G car at a time of day when it was obvious the car was not being used in the Rose Bowl Parade, but no one from Hagerty contacted me and said "why were you driving the car at 11 o'clock at night?"

I mean Hagerty is seriously upping their stakes in this hobby. This year they took over the naming rights of the official drivers' lounge at the Monterey Reunion, that forever has been the Rolex lounge. (It never failed to crack me up when some guy would be at the entrance and pointing at their Rolex and pleading with the gatekeeper that they should be let in! I guess now people will be flashing their proof of insurance cards...). Hagerty even offered a couple track experience events at Laguna on the Wednesday of the Reunion week. They're also advertising hard for people to insure their street cars for track days and insure full on race cars - something they never used to do. So they're really diving in hard and creating new properties and experiences for their customers, so all this investment would just blow up in their faces if they were constantly hassling people about getting their cars repaired properly etc.

(By the way the F car was repaired at Arroyo Auto in Burbank California which is a place that has done major big-dollar restorations. Hell… they even had a Hagerty booth there! (Which was startling because you'll see the Geico booth in a typical big body shop, and it's usually just a cubicle that the insurance company inspector can camp out at when they're on the road.

So there were certainly no corners cut on this bit of unfortunate body repair, and I don't think I ever even took a phone call from anyone at Hagerty during the whole process.

actually there is one portion of the hagerty lifetime universal experience that they need to do some serious work on and that's the roadside assistance program. Even though I've had a policy for 1 million years I never used it before until pretty recently, and it was terrible. It prompted me to go online and look for some chatter about it, and this roadside assistance program has been roasted online and reviews for years. so it's bizarre that Hagerty doesn't tighten that up.

Well sorry for the long ramble, but maybe there's some stuff in there that could be informative. Jarrod, good luck on your quest.

 

You get what you pay for
Chubb is my go to choice- no hassles. Even with new high value cars- if total loss they pay the original price of the car not the depreciated value of the car.
It’s costly but you have peace of mind


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

Do you go direct to them or does it need to be through an agent/broker?

 

I went through my broker


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat