Type of insurance for a daily driver SC, and max value in case is totaled?

[shinyknight]

Hi guys

I am looking around to find a new insurance for my ride

I have a 1980 SC, which is actually insured with Progressive, I've bee with them for 4 years now.

I realized that in case of total damage or if it is stolen, burn down; I see no clear value of how much I would get back. Since the car is old. KBB does not go beyond 1990, and Nada.com gives an evaluation of 23K, which is unrealistic (I paid the car half of that, about 6 years ago).

I would like to know what would I get, in case that something happens; otherwise I save my money and just avoid to cover the car for any other event, except the standard coverage, and buy a specific insurance just for old cars? Not sure what's the best way to go....I've put on the car quite a lot, and would be sad to see a check for 5-6K if something goes bad.

What do you actually use? And how did you figured out how to get the best value out of the insurance? My insurance expire in 2 months, so I am starting to look around for alternatives.

Thanks!

[Dave Colangelo]

I am not sure what I would get but I do know that when I went to register my car there was an issue with the bill of sale I had. The woman at the DMV informed me that if I could not get it fixed and thus not prove the price I paid for the car I would have to pay taxes on the "value" of the car. I asked what this was and she told me 19K (I live in NY) she did look this number up in the computer but Im not sure where it came from. My car is a 78SC.

If the car is not your DD you may want to look into classic car insurance. I have spoken to a few guys about this and there are companies out there that seem to have a name your price situation. Since many people put a lot of money into their cars they seem to be able to let you claim what it is worth. I dont know if you need to show any receipts of work/parts for these claims but I am sure they ask some questions as to where the number came from. There are some restrictions on classic car insurance when it comes to miles and use (this varies from provider to provider) so the price may be low but you may not always be able to use the car.

Regards
Dave

[JAR0023]

Let me see if I can sort through some of this. For the record I worked for Progressive for over a decade still have a ton of friends that work at Prog and have my daily driven 86 Carrera insured by Prog.

Prog will sell a stated value policy which is what you get with most classic insurers. Sounds like you have a regular policy, though. If you totaled your car Prog would pay out based on what they would call the actual cash value (ACV). What that ACV is would be up for debate.

Your NADA number is a good start. If you back up and look at the NADA, for classic cars NADA will give three values based on the condition of the car. Low - daily driver that needs a little work. Mid - original in good condition or older restoration. High - Great original condition or recent restoration. For you 80 SC the current numbers are $19/$22/$31K. Very few companies would give you the high number $31K. Most companies will start at the middle number $22k. Still a handful of bad apples would throw the low number at you.

Prog right now values cars with a product from Mitchell; (TLV) Similar to the older CCC product. They try to find comparable cars within a given radius of your zip code and then take the average of their values. This works well for Camrys and F-150s. Not so much for 30 year old 911s. A chunk of the comps come from AutoTrader. Still Mitchell won't find enough matches for you car. When this short circuit happens Mitchell backs up and starts calling dealers to find similar cars for sale...or they'll pull an NADA value. Mitchell won't readily admit this but since I work with the product daily I too often see the Mitchell numbers almost exactly what the NADA numbers are on older vehicles.

So, here's the fun part. You total your car and call in a claim. Odds are the company will make an honest attempt to give you a reasonable ACV, but not being a Porsche person they are going to throw out whatever numbers are fed to them. Here's where you diligence and homework can pay off. You don't have to accept the companies offer. If any company throws you a low ball offer you need to counter with your own valuation. Pull data from Pelican, Rennlist, Autotrader, Excellence, etc. Pull your reciepts for all recent work. If you can legitimately show that your car (or cars like it) are trading hands for more than the company's offer they have to look at it. If they still low ball you take it to your state's Dept of Ins (DOI). A DOI complaint gets everyone's attention starting from the top. Now the Ins company not only has to prove their low ball offer to you but also to the DOI.

Another option available in almost all policies is an appraisal clause. Put simply you and the insurance company agree before hand to accept the value from two independent appraisers. You pay for one, the company pays for one. They each make an independent valuation and your offer is the avg of the two. Be careful with this one as if you don't pick the right independent appraiser you could be out of luck.

Insurance is just risk management. You can pay more for a stated value policy and not have to worry if the worst happens or you can save money with a regular ACV policy but you may have to put in some work should the worst happen. I'm comfortable with an ACV policy because I'm confident I can prove the value of my car and I know how the game works.

Short version if you were insured with my company, or more likely hit by one of our insureds, and totaled an 80 SC in reasonably nice condition you'd likely get an offer of around $22k.

Insurance policies vary by company and by state. I know my 13 states, not so much the others. If you have specific questions feel free to send me a PM. -J

[blockhed]

I am in NJ and I use classic car insurance. I recently signed a new policy and it's full coverage policy, 500 deductible with 30k replacement value. When I was doing the quote I told them to value the car at 18k but when they ran the numbers they said it should be in between 23-33k. They suggested I should go higher so I chose 30k. My policy makes sure my car is garaged and 6000 miles a year. I didn't use my regular insurance because they would not value my car beyond the original value . Oh ya best part is insurance costs me $165 bucks per year, yes you read it right 165
PM me if you want more info

[db_cooper]

If you use Hagerty Insurance..they will ask for a replacement value..and give you an agreed value for total loss up front.

[Josh D]

Originally Posted by db_cooper

If you use Hagerty Insurance..they will ask for a replacement value..and give you an agreed value for total loss up front.

Hagarty is not keen on you using the car as a daily driver though. If you total the car during your commute, you might not have to fight for replacement value, but you might have to fight what car was being used for.

[Dodge Man]

The clean SC cars are worth a lot more than the ACV most insurance companies will award. IMHO Pay the extra $50-$100 bucks for stated value. Many collector's insurance companies will do daily drivers but the rate will be higher. I have Leland West and they will also write separate track policies as many will. You are insuring against a loss for the replacement value. I highly recommend doing a lot of homework so you cover yourself well. Decide on the coverage you want then shop rates. Low rates may be nice in the short term but may make you a victim of being under insured when "IT" hits the fan. Best of luck.

[DougZ]

I chose to go with regular insurance because I wanted to be able to commute to work on nice days. I also get discount for insuring multiple cars. I didn't like Hagerty's limitation not to be able to use car other then weekends or non work commute. Other classic car insurance companies I was not comfortable with since they aren't as known to me. If anything happend to my car I can prove the car's value to insurance company. I will take high resolution photos, make HD video clips, provide extensive history of service repair bills and current prices of comparable cars.

[OsoMoore]

I ended up with Triple-A. They asked me to get it appraised, and used that to set the cost. IIRC it is quite cheap because it is my 2nd vehicle insured with them. There is no mileage limit.

Their rate was better than Geico and State Farm. Both Hagerty and Leland West turned me down when I wanted to commute with it.

[porwolf]

I have State Farm policy with my 79SC as a classic car, and a second car, with annual 3,000 maximum mileage. The "agreed value" is $24,000.- for total loss, based on PCA Porsche Club valuation.

[Reiver]

Find a collector insurer that allows for daily driving...get rid of the Progressive as it's owned by a Communist...ergo the name of the Company.

[Icepack]

Classic car insurance seems to vary from company to company as far as limitations on how you use the car. When I insured my 911 through Hagerty less than a year ago they put no limitations on how I use it. They wanted to know if it was garaged, and they wanted proof that it wasn't my daily driver. The proof they required was documentation of insurance on the daily driver.

Some insurance agents who deal with regular car insurance understand the classic car insurance thing, and others do not. If you're not working with an agent who understands both, find another agent.

If the car is your daily driver, you are not going to get classic car insurance. You can get an agreed value policy which will pay out the value of the car if it's totaled, but it will not be as inexpensive as classic car insurance. It's a different level of risk.

[Reiver]

The key to daily driver is (collector)...is it your commute to work car and not so much how much you drive it.

[S2GART]

I have driven to work many times in my 911. If I got into an accident, how would the insurance company know that I was going to/coming from work. Clubs do hold events during the week, or maybe I had that day off and was going for a "pleasure drive"

What you will find is that some classic insurance companies won't insure your classic is your daily driver is more than 10 years old. Theory being that is that a DD that is more than 10 yrs old will likely break down and you will end up using the classic as a back up car.

[JAR0023]

Originally Posted by Reiver

Find a collector insurer that allows for daily driving...get rid of the Progressive as it's owned by a Communist...ergo the name of the Company.

In 2009 Progressive fired me along with about 300 other qualified managers. In hind-sight, one of the best things that could have happened to me professionally, but still I don't owe them any favors.

Just to be clear, Progressive has been a publicly traded company since 1971 and Peter B. Lewis is now dead. -J


- If you don't understand insurance, find a local agent you can trust and get them to explain it to you.

- Even if you trust your agent read and understand your policy. The devil's in the details and the likelihood of someone on the internet having the same policy as you is almost nil.

- The cheapest policy isn't always the best policy.

[alfadoc]

I have 5 cars insured with American Collectors, all stated value, all $0 deductible. I've had four claims: 1) an S class Mercedes that was a hit and run victim while being driven, 2) two months after it got fixed a tree fell on it totalling it, 3) a beautiful 944 N/A that burned up in a shop fire, 4) my current 944 S2 got hit in front of my house, causing nearly $5000 in damages. In all cases they paid without any hassle, and didn't grill me to find out if I had ever driven any of them to work or had exceeded the annual mileage allotment. Coverage on all of them is about $600 a year. So far they haven't raised my rates or told me to get lost. They'll be my insurance company for as long as they'll have me. BTW, I do have a pickup truck as well, insured on a regular policy as a "daily driver".

[triplenet]

We just carry liability. In 25 + yrs of doing this, I figure we're way ahead, as we have not even had a minor ding.

When we bought our '82 SC in 1986, an insurance agent told me that these cars are special and usually garaged, pampered and seldom driven.

I came upon this plan as we have 5 cars and 2 drivers, so why insure everything to the risk of the real world when they mostly sit in the garage? We drive about 40K miles per year, 90% with Outback and Cayenne.
This plan doesn't work if car is financed.

[shinyknight]

Thanks guys for clarifying; it didn't cross my mind until I saw a guy with a 1984 911 crying because his car, on which he invested quite a lot, was totaled and was useless his point that he restored engine and transmission (13K a year before), since they paid him less than 9K.

The car is my DD, it is not a garage queen, since I have got it as project car; but I've spent quite a lot on it, updating almost everything to newer parts (and some where the original parts, which surprise me how they would still be working after 34 years!); I decided to leave the cosmetic part at the end, once that the mechanical part is done. Which means that my car may not look good to a person that would go and appraise it, sadly.

I bought the car because I love it, and because I love to drive it...I don't have the concept of first,s second and commute car; I have the car that I like, until it run, it goes wherever I go Many of you may feel bad at my abuse of the car, but I believe that the right place for a car is on the road, not in a garage for a biweekly use

My main problem could be that I drive it every day to go to work; I rarely drive it for long trip, but I put that 5-10 miles a day to go to work and back, plus the occasional miles to go to a store or just cruise around....so as average, probably I run about 5-10K miles per year. A classic car insurance would probably ask me quite a lot for this kind of mileage, from what I can understand

Lots of good info Jar! I didn't know that I can refuse or make a counter offer when totaled, nor that I can bring the thing to the DOI I agree that the cheapest is never the best...I've been working with insurance (but they were life insurance, and in another country), so I have a bit of info about what to look for, but still, every time that I ask the guys online (I do not have an agent, I never had one...I did all via internet and I just call their 1-800 number if needed), they never give me the specific info that I need...after a claim, the person that came to check the car told me that they implicitly do not give info to avoid to give customers openings for certain actions. This is pure BS to me, because I need to know what am I covered for, since I pay and don't get it for free.

Blockhead; I pay 3 times more every 6 months Sadly I am in CA, so I am not sure if I can get similar condition. There is the mileage problem, since mine is a DD, and also would be interesting to know the conditions of the policy (like coverage values).

Alfadoc: probably your daily driver is the life saver there...I have my wife's car, but I almost never drive it, and would be quite an illicit to declare that as DD, so my hands are tied.

I will have to process all your info and do some homework, to see if there is any opening for me to get a classic car insurance. I don't want to do anything wrong, nor take advantage, I just want to avoid to end up like the person that I mentioned at the beginning of the post

20-30K feels honest, if I need to go get a new 911 SC and put it on par of where mine is now, but anything under that would make me feel pretty bad