Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffo
I am not advocating misleading the insurance company. But this is my experience.
I owned a shiny luxury sports car. It was my pride and joy and I spent £4,000 modifying the car with new body kit, lower (1") suspension, uprated supercharger pulley, cone air filter, new dashboard, interior trim.
The most noticeable addition was the cone air filter and the body kit. The body kit was OEM, but from a newer model. I never told the insurance company; I never thought about the insurance before modifying the car, and afterwords the prices I was getting where stupid; in the region of £1000's more for the mods. The silly thing was the effect on performance was 400bhp -> 420bhp, not a major improvement.
Recently I wrote the car off. It wasn't a bad crash and no-one else was involved; I hit a puddle and lost control. The insurance company has now paid out on the claim. They did ask if it had been modified (I said no) but DIDN'T question it.
HOWEVER; After the accident I was on a knife's edge while the car sat in the bodyshop, and didn't relax until I got the payout.
Would I change things in future? Certainly. In future I would not modify a car beyond original spec. I still won't report factory options however such as tints, running boards, etc. because these are factory and can be argued but I won't be getting the Polestar upgrade on my XC90.
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A very dangerous game indeed that could cost you not only being refused insurance cover/invalidate your cover should you have a write-off or claim but also driving without insurance and risking being heavily fined and/or facing prison time.
Most insurance companies seems to add a small charge for cosmetic extras from factory like wheels (upgraded one's), tints, tow bars etc, but not for other options like BLIS, Dynaudio, Parking Sensors, Winter Pack etc. At least in my experience.
As a note, I made a quote for my XC60 with Admiral and the factory tints and the price was only £20 more. Not bad considering the other option of not disclosing it and risking much more than a simple £20 fee.