John H

Honestly, I think you should switch carriers about every 4 years or so. Have you ever noticed that as you car depreciates, your premium stays the same (if not rising)? If you go to a new carrier they will write the car as a four year old car. It's almost automatic your rates will go down. Not true in every case because I have had carriers that offered small longevity discounts and reduced deductibles for no claims, but it never hurts to shop around.

blake

In theory, this makes sense. But in reality, the agents seem unable to separate their opinions from what the policy actually says. As I stated in my above post, I initally viewed this as a simple business transaction. Unfortunately, all 15 agents that I spoke with were unable to separate emotion from the facts and were also unable to provide me with the facts.

Interestingly enough, my current agent is a great guy and knows that I track the car - but Allstate has recently excluded DE in very clear terms...

Now it is time to resort to "Plan B"!

-Blake

RXDOC

I have been with StateFarm (in GA) for the last 19 years. I have been with the same agent for 19 years. This is something that gets overlooked in these discussions: It is what your policy AND STATE FARM insurance company state. NOT what your agent says, your agent isn't going to pay for your car out of his/her pocket. When you have a claim, it will get kicked up tp corporate. Good luck with getting it covered.
I wrestled with this issue for many years, while stupidly tracking a 90K+ 996TT which I couldn't "walk away from" if wrecked. And how much property, bodily injury can you "walk away" from incase of an on track accident?
This is why I stopped tracking my street car. The risk was just too high.

007DT

I'm with State Farm & I said ... "this is not racing but it is "Driver Education" we are going fast but it is a controlled environment. No Clocks, Racing, Bumping, etc. He said it was covered under those circumstances. I then got it in writing. Just in Case.

TraqGear

My Allstate agent has confirmed that my cars will be covered on the track for DE's only. Also, only my car is covered, no liability would be paid to another car involved if any. Wheel-to-wheel, all bets are off...no coverage.

todinlaw

You did not make a mistake about talking about tracking your car. Bluntly, it is either covered or not. You need to pull out your policy and look under exclusions for property damage and see how they discuss track use. In Ohio State farm, nationwide and many others cover DE type track events but exclude any racing or timed events (autocross) Like Porsche dealers some agents are with it and some are not. Your agent my not know what the hell he is talking about. The contract is king. if you had it you still have if you did not, you never did.

If you can't buy it you can buy DE coverage but it will cost about 3 to 4 % of the insured value.

Lastly, you will not find Liability coverage for personal injury. You and everyone else signs a waver with the track and event sponser that you waive your right to sue for injury.

However Property damage to your car and the track is something that you can and should cover.

So my view is Read the policy or have someone read it for you and you will know what the score it.

If you are unsure PM me with the wording used to discuss excluding coverage and I will give my my 2cents worth.

Mikelly

The devil is and will always be in the details. Read your fine print and all exclussions and DO NOT take the word of your agent. If you do, you're listening to someone who has NOT read the fineprint and exclussions.

Since FALL of 2007 many of the major carriers have added language to their national policies to address HPDE and if you haven't read the updated language or addendums, you should do so immediately. Do not think you are covered until you READ that you are covered...

I'd bet dollars to donuts that many who have been told by their agents or are simply to scared to read the fine print aren't covered and will be kicking themselves if they ever find themselves on the wrong side of the tire wall.

Mike

TraqGear

Right on Frank! If in doubt, get your agent to check with the underwriter. That's the best way to be sure.

Sab

The real problem is that my ignorant agent tells me, "that since he knows I have intentions to track the car" he told me he can not insure it.

todinlaw

I would give some serious thought to dumping the agent anyway. You pay him to look out for you, He aint selling that stuff for free. My agent takes care of me and makes good money off of all the cars in insure. I have told him things that he does not pass on to the company because he is looking out for me. I would find someone you can trust and work with, because if I am going to do business with someone and they make money off of me I would expect they look out for me. My agent knows I track, he is more worried about my 16 year old daughter however.

Sab

I got a contact for another State Farm agent from Skip and I will talk to her tomorrow.

good hands

Sab,

Bypass the agent and send a letter to the company with your intent to add the car to your policy. Include the year, make, and VIN of the car. Insurance is state regulated and i don't know the laws of Fla. but If your car is a private passenger vehicle and is licensed with the DMV they have an obligation to cover it. The advice about getting a better agent is a good one too.

mrbill_fl

I went down this road last year... was with Haggerty for over 5 yrs, but switched to SF...

My problem or, issue, was a state farm umbrella liability policy, that didn't list the 911.
The cost to add the 911 to the umbrella was more that changing carriers.

However, as I recall, the policy would not cover me for damage on any facility used for racing (at any time). but the policy, does offer liablity and damage for street use.

(Haggerty was same, (IIRC), they did conver non-timed events, but changed the language a few years back).

I'll try to remember to pull out my SF policy tonight... but does anyone have the Florida SF policy text handy that covers track use?

Janni

When we have a race car with a VIN, we added it to our policy with Fireman's Fund as Comp and Liability only. NO COLLISION. Really only wanted theft coverage, and that worked out fine. Didn't mention racing, as we knew it was only for theft, fire, etc and that we'd never submit a claim.

Probably borderline sneaky, since if we WERE racing and had an incident and someone sued, they would find out that we had liability coverage and subsequent umbrella coverage... However, in NC, my Fireman's Find policy still does not include racing / DE / track etc in any of their exclusions. They will not, however, cover my vehicle against war or nuclear destruction. I can live with that tradeoff.

New race car does not have VIN, so that is no longer an option and we had to switch to Storage / Transport and Paddock insurance on it.

Hope this helps.

analogmike

I can't understand the insurance industry- instead of trying to keep good clients they try to get rid of them by constantly raising the rates to discourage people from renewing.

My health insurance kept going up for no reason so I cancelled the policy and got a new policy online with the same company for less than half the price.