Hey Guys,

more and more threads pop up about FDs getting in accidents and being totaled out due to the KBB/NADA value not being high enough. A nice middle-mileage FD may only come in at $12-14k, meaning any kind of accident and you're looking down the barrel of a Salvage Title.

For many years now I and my brother and many of our friends have been insured by American Collectors Insurance,

Best Collectors Insurance Companies | Classic Car Insurance Rates & Quotes | Americans Collectors Insurance | www.americancollectors.com | American Collectors

They've provided great customer service with VERY good pricing, and one of my friends made a pretty big claim last year and they 100% took care of getting the FD fixed better than new.

To give you an idea, I'm paying ~$400 per car per year, with Agreed On Value at $25,000 and mileage limits of 5000 per year. This with a very nice $100 deductible.

The 'standard' Agreed On Value is around $21,500 for a '93 FD, and it's simple to raise the value-- just submit receipts for parts and/or labor. Something we all are very familiar with

A good buddy has his '94 FD with American Collectors at $35,000 Agreed On Value and I believe he's paying around $600 per year. He sent them receipts towards mods etc.

You need a recent daily driver and the car(s) must be garaged, but they're much more friendly and willing to work with you than any of the others in my experience.

Give them a shout at (888) 360-2277 and go to extension 221 to speak with Maxine. She's been super helpful and welcomes more RX-7 guys

Hope you guys find this helpful. Any questions let me know

 

Good to know. Thank you!

 

What do you mean by a recent daily driver? My beater/daily is an old 93 240sx that I take everywhere, do they only accept a daily that's past a certain year?

 

Thanks for the info Rich! I've been looking to switch as my regular AAA full coverage is $600 a year anyways, and I don't put more than 2000 miles on the FD per year.

 

And here I am paying $320 (Canadian) a month for insurance on my FD.... You guys are lucky with private insurance companys.

 

Sounds like a good option, but I'll stick with Hagerty. No mileage limits, Zero Deductible collision and comp. $568 @ year for TWO cars with a total agreed value of ~35K (20k for the FD) and both have free roadside assistance/towing. No complaints on customer assistance.

 

I wish I can get some kind of Classic Car Insurance but the minimum requires a garage -_- if anyone knows another alternative, please let me know. Sticking with Geico for now...

 

Biggest issue with regular insurance is they will only give you market value. Not only does regular car insurance cost more but it covers less.
I use American Modern with an agreed value policy. It's likely half the premium and twice the coverage of what State Farm would cost/benefit.

Next year I will up the coverage even more because of how much $$ I am currently putting into the car. You can't do that with regular car insurance. All the money you spend would immediately be lost if the car was stolen.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been wanting to find new insurance. Currently with state farm paying double that.

 

Yes, a lot of the collector companies want a DD that's 4 years old or less. Really stupid policy if you ask me.

 

Thanks for the heads up rich. Mine came up with 628 bucks with 599 deductible and declared value of 24k. I am doing 100-300 liability though. Perhaps that's the difference vs yours. In any event I wonder why mine is 50% more. They asked for pics and as such they priced as modified vehicle when they saw the engine bay all polished up

This is vs my normal insurance of 815. However the big caveat is that with my normal insurance it's kbb value and who knows what that answer would be. So I am decideding that I will likely change.

 

I tried to get a quote from Mercury Insurance a couple weeks ago. The salesman was pretty much trying to talk me out of it the whole time, trying to find reasons why i didnt qualify. he said things like "a collector car is like a 63 impala or a muscle car". I was very offended by this and ended up hanging of on him after he told me i didnt qualify because i had 2 points on my driving record. ******.

I believe its a matter of opinion.

"are you going to use it as a secondary vehicle"?

"are you going to track it"?

 

Actually I got this down to 450. Wow

Basically first time I called I spoke to some random women who was nice. Then I reread this thread and saw the Maxine contact. I called back and she took care of me. Very knowledgable.

I owe you a steak rich.

 

Grundy insurance. $232 a year. 2500 miles, 18k value. $500 deductible. The catch is, it needs to be garaged indoors. You need to have a daily car as well (as with all collector car insurances)

 

I've used them for a decade with my FBs, the NSX, and now the FD. When my first Turbo FB was stolen, they were super awesome to deal with to.

 

3rd cars are always the go to for transportation when your daily is in the shop. It's rare a brand new car ends up in the shop and if it does you get a loaner from the dealer.
It's an important clause in a limited use policy.

 

Even if your past-warranty main transportation is in the shop, and there's no loaner, I can't see a policy holder opting to use their old muscle car/250 GTO/new exotic, or even mint FD to park somewhere (like work or Home Depot) unattended. Logically, one would just stay home or find alternate means or wait til the daily is fixed.

 

Ah, didn't realize that was a thing. I don't see a need for a new car when my other one isn't having any issues. Shame since I can't qualify for this.

 

Little strange to me as I don't remember Hagerty asking me about the age of my daily driver and it was almost 6 years old. So far can't complain about the service - used their free tow service several times (short distances though). Just out of curiosity tried getting a quote from the American coll. ins. and it came up really close to my current rate with hagerty, although the actual rate may differ from the quote.

 

I have several cars with Grundy. My FD is at $35K and costs around $500 a year.
My Cobra, though valued MUCH higher, actually costs less to insure. I suppose the loss ratio is lower on Cobra's than it is on Japanese sports cars. Also much more likely for Jap cars to be owned and driven by younger kids.

The real savings is you only pay for ONE liability policy, the reasoning being that you can't drive more than one of your classics at a time.

 

I have my '94 insured as a "classic vehicle" through State Farm. $24k agreed value coverage, $280/yr. I had to stop by my agent's office so that they could take photos and verify the condition and such, but it was a pretty hassle-free process. Annual mileage limit of 5000 I believe. This is with two other vehicles (both more than 4 years old) in a 2-person home, and the FD is garaged.

I can't remember if it was Haggerty or Grundy, but I went through one of their online quote generators and it told me I wasn't eligible. It didn't say why, but I called State Farm after that to see if they had something that would work and just went with them instead. If not I likely would've actually made phone calls to see what my options were.

 

Be careful of State Farm's policies.
I've had them on a couple of my daily drivers for many years, and have tried to insure my collector cars with them, but they only offered stated value, not agreed value coverage.
That may differ by state, but stated value is really no better than ordinary insurance.
The "stated value" only serves to set the premium cost, and an upper limit of coverage.
They still only pay depreciated actual cash value in the event of a total loss.
It's really the worst of both worlds, you pay for a higher value, and accept usage restrictions, but don't get any more coverage.

 

Interesting, thanks. It certainly wasn't presented to me that way, but I'll double check later and give them a call to get some clarification.

 

Yeah I asked my State Farm agent for clarification and they said you can only drive the car in Parades. Strictly. I asked like 3 times because it didn't make sense to me. They will not pay if it gets wrecked and you are just driving it for pleasure. Watch out. You may be paying for coverage not compatible for your usage.

 

Rich,

I'll echo your initial post and say that they are very easy to deal with and do a great job insuring cars for their real value. You have to apply online and they get back to you promptly and my rep walked me through the underwriting process which involved pictures of the car and the garage its in, as well as the normal insurance coverage limit information.

I just insured my old school 89 Porsche 930 with them and it was a breeze. Hopefully, I'll never have to use the insurance, but I feel way better that the car is properly insured in case the house falls down on it or something crazy.