everything has been said in this thread.
you have to pay to play.
it's a tough lesson and yet some will still balk at the insurance.
some are lucky and dont crash as they get faster, some get taken out early and pay dearly.
at the end of the day, you have to buy track insurance.
for the guy in front of you dropping oil or coolant , or the guy behind you losing his brakes.
**** happens and it sucks and this hobby is fun and cost money.
its a great thread for everybody .
sorry for the loss.

 

Ontrack
Lockton
RLI

Those are the 3 insurance carrier's i've used for tracking. Depending on the sanctioning body Ontrack can offer discounts per weekend.

 

Wow, really sorry to see that happen to you, and applaud that you'd throw it out there. I think you may have saved others some equal heartache. I haven't read the entire thread that closely, so excuse me if some of this has been covered. A few points/questions:

I noticed that there was a convertible on the track, and there was passing in the corners. It also seemed like a decent number of cars on a small track at the same time and a lot of bunching. In the track days I've done there have been three groups, basically touring, sport, and race. Convertibles were limited to touring group, and a car have to wave you by on a straight if you wanted to pass. Sport allows passing only on the straights, and race was reserved to race cars and pretty much anything goes within reason, but pretty much gentlemen rules. On a small track that has some very unforgiving sections I'm not sure this was the safest scenario, not that this had anything to do with your crash, just an observation.

I've always understood that if the track day was under the guise of "Driver Education" that your car's standard insurance policy applied. In fact I've known guys who've crashed and/or totaled cars on the track who recovered from their insurance company. If there were "certified" instructors attending and it wasn't officially timed, you might be able to make that argument. I'd check your policy carefully.

It sounds like you have a lien on your car, and I'd be shocked if the fact that the car is totaled without insurance doesn't put you in immediate default, regardless of whether your account is current. The lender has absolutely no collateral at this point and you're in very real danger of what would effectively be the same as a repo. I'd figure out a way to payoff your loan ASAP!

 

OP: Lots of us have been there, 16 years ago I was racing superbikes every weekend, Crashing is a regular occurrence, but when your aprilia starts flipping end over end, it's nearly a total write off. Broken bones are part of the game as well, glad you walked away! Back then my Aprilia's Mille superbikes we're 40k. Later on I moved to GSXR's these were cheap to total. Here we're a couple of replacements.

 

This may have been true at one time - but is no longer the case. While a few companies may still insure a car at a high performance DE event - most insurance companies specifically exclude these events.

It is worthwhile reading your policy and understanding what is excluded. When we have questions we insist our agent get answers in writing from the underwriter. There can be no miss-understanding

 

It was true with State Farm in the mid-nineties when I started on track. Within a few short years they closed that loophole and at the time my agent, who knew what I was up to, pointed out the new language. This was sometime before 2000, iirc, or at the latest maybe 2002.

 

In 98 i had a buddy total a 993TT at Road America @ a PCA DE day I was at and Allstate totaled it paid him 118k. i guess those were the good old days..carl

 

thx for posting this exp.
it will be an wake up call for many.
regular ins sometimes do cover, but dont hang your hat on it
1. get track ins
2. be ready to cut a chk for your wreck, if u cant do it, dont track that car.

speaking from exp i have totalled a few cars. never bothered calling ins.

 

in 2006 I totalled a BMW M3 streetcar at HPDE event.
Progressive covered it 100% and to my surprise paid more than the car was worth.

after that I built a non-street legal M3 racecar and never insured it

 

To the OP - man, major bummer. Your video showed up on a FB group I'm in.

From the video, the way the car snaps around is surprising... My thought was "Did a tire go down?"

As to the insurance discussion: I'm actively (like, right now...I landed on this thread due to a search...) looking for DE insurance for an event on Monday. I've always used Lockton but am just sniffing around to see what else is out there (that might be cheaper). I briefly thought about "risking it' but I'll take my stumbling into this thread as my sign to buy the damned insurance if I go.

Re: some sentiments about "I'll just drive at 8/10ths"... for ME, it's not ME I'm worried about. I'm more worried about the other idiots I'm sharing the track with. I have a friend, several years ago, who is very conservative on track. Loves it, but always leaves a lot on the table because he'd rather finish the weekend in one piece. He'd always been successful until he entered T1 at Road America on the first green flag lap and found (SURPRISE!) a car parked sideways right in his path. He had nowhere to go and hit the guy. Not looking to distract the convo with commentary about the incident... my point is: sometimes, there really are no options and things can be completely out of your control.

With the weather looking iffy on Monday... I may wind up skipping the event. $300 event fee to "risk" is one thing. $800+ after all insurance for a rain-out is not worth it...

 

I wish I would have gone through your line of thinking before I crashed on a wet track

 

To each their own but personally I do not understand the DE guys who run in the wet. I know some guys are just SUPER excited to be at the track and would run in a damned blizzard but I don't see how it's even any fun?

Last time I operated a vehicle on a wet track in a "fast" manner it was my motorcycle, I was racing, and there were points and purse money at stake.

No purse money? No track.

 

I'll go out on a wet track on a DE day because it's an opportunity to learn car control. I'm not pushing it super hard but I also don't track a $100k+ porsche. I track my miata and if I wreck it then I buy another shell and swap it all over. I could completely write off the whole car without a second thought.

 

Somebody earlier mentioned Hagerty entering the market so I checked out them along with the others and their quote was about $100 less than the others just based on the generic value quote. They had similar % deductibles too. I'll probably give one of these insurers a shot my next track day if I don't rent a spec car instead (which will cost me the same).

 

That's what I use wet autocross days for Much less risk.