Expensive Car Insurance

Insuring a high value car

Expensive cars create their own particular risks for insurers.

Around half of the car insurance claims which are settled in Britain pay for repairs to the cars themselves. This can rise dramatically, however, if the car involved is particularly valuable.

If the average motorist has a bump in an average car, getting it repaired is usually quite straightforward. Spares are almost inevitably easy to get hold of; and there are plenty of skilled workshop personnel who can get the vehicle back on the road in as good a condition as it was in before the accident.

The bodywork on these cars is not necessarily designed for ease of repair, as is the case of many more popular vehicles. A slight amount of damage to the bodywork could result in the replacement of much, or even all, of the car body. Damage to other members such as the chassis, if there is one, the transmission or the steering gear could create considerable supply problems.

This is assuming, of course, that spare parts are available. Many of the more expensive cars are handbuilt to order, which means that spare parts also have to be made in the same way.This can cause extensive delays whilst necessary spares are shipped to the repair company. This is if someone can be found with the necessary skills to repair vehicles that very few people have had experience with. Delays cost money as storage fees mount, and a replacement car is provided.

Insurance companies like to deal with statistically predictable issues. They know that, for the majority of cars on the road, repairs can be carried out fairly quickly and at reasonable cost. When they are asked to insure a vehicle which may be extremely difficult, or even impossible, to repair economically than many of them would prefer to just walk away.

Trying to insure a very rare or expensive vehicle through a price comparison site is usually a waste of time because the insurance companies cannot list every single car that is manufactured; they will have their own list of vehicles that they will cover and it is extremely unlikely that these will include rarer models at the top of the price range. To get any quotations at all for some of these vehicles, let alone a very cheap one, can be extremely difficult indeed; which is one of the reasons why we read so often of cars worth hundreds of thousands of pounds being impounded for lack of insurance!

A broker who specialises in finding cover for prestigious vehicles is far more likely to be able to produce realistic quotations than an online service.