Lowered car should not be a reason to not insure...atleast not here in the states. We do have to make sure that it passes safety regs in certain states, but other than that you should not have this much issue.
Personally I would not tell them it was lowered until after you get the insurance. once you get the insurance and pay for it then let them know a few days later that you lowered it.
Depends on your age, and where you live. But, getting insurance for performance cars is already tough enough. I would not think about modding it (or buying one with mods) before arranging insurance fiirst. Lucky you don't live in Cabbra (assuming) ... you may not have been able to get insurance at any price
There's not much you can do but spend 2 days ringing around asking for quotes. I am not with Ford Insure, but when I needed to change insurers on my HSV, CGU were quite reasonable with the quote. Just a suggestion.
Originally posted by LunaticSVT Lowered car should not be a reason to not insure...atleast not here in the states. We do have to make sure that it passes safety regs in certain states, but other than that you should not have this much issue.
In Oz, it seems that insurers generally equate any modification to the car to an increased risk of a claim - mod == hoon. Nothing you can do about it, the insurance industry has us by the balls.
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Personally I would not tell them it was lowered until after you get the insurance. once you get the insurance and pay for it then let them know a few days later that you lowered it.
Bad move.
Possible scenario #1: in the few days you take to tell them, something goes wrong and you need to make a claim - result: they will cancel the policy due to not "fulfilling the disclosure requirements", and you get nothing.
Possible scenario #2: when you tell them they will tell you that you no longer meet their risk guidelines and will cancel the policy, then you are back to square one.
The insurance industry in Australia don't screw around with stuff like this. I have heard many stories of claims not being paid do to undeclared mods. Does not matter if the claim has nothing to do with the mod.
Here inthe states the worst they can do is drop you for lowering your car, but you can not be dropped until you complete your stint with them. so if you are paid up for or even paid partial for a 12 month term then they are stuck with you until then.
As far as mods they can cover the car and not the mods. So if you have a wreck they will still repair the car, but not replace the mods that you have done if it comes to that.
I have done this in the past./.....take my car to get insured. after modding the car take out additional policy on the parts that were modded. If i add rims, get an isure policy for that and all other parts.
NRMA have quite a few guidlines regarding lowering vehicles, ie: not heating or cutting springs, not lowering a standard vehicle more than 30mm, minimum height from ground is 100mm from road to lowest point, there is also a criteria relating to centre of headlight to ground, I think it was 590mm, my AU XR doesn't meet that at standard height. Always a good idea to check with your insurer and relevant authorities if you are going to do any form of modification.
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Originally posted by LunaticSVT Here inthe states the worst they can do is drop you for lowering your car, but you can not be dropped until you complete your stint with them. so if you are paid up for or even paid partial for a 12 month term then they are stuck with you until then.
As far as mods they can cover the car and not the mods. So if you have a wreck they will still repair the car, but not replace the mods that you have done if it comes to that.
I have done this in the past./.....take my car to get insured. after modding the car take out additional policy on the parts that were modded. If i add rims, get an isure policy for that and all other parts.
Ahhh ... different world to here. Our insurance industry are bastards basically, and if anyone actually read the 20 pages of legalese they agree to when they purchase insurance, I think they might be a bit upset.
It boils down to a legal thing, at least in NSW, whereby I as the consumer of insurance have an obligation to "full disclosure". If the insurance company reckons it can prove that I did not disclose everything (and the wording is along the lines of "I must disclose anything and everything which might affect the insurance company's decision to insure me" - I shit you not), then the policy is null and void.
It is my responsibility to work out what might be interesting to the insurance company and make sure I tell them.
I almost couldn't buy my car because of this problem. I was 21 and on my P's and they wouldn't insure an AU Fairmont which had Tickford factory additions, bodykit, wheels etc because they said it was modified. When I insisted that the car was like that from the factory, they would just say, the car is modified. This place called Just Car insurance said they would insure me, for $3000 a year up front, yeah right!!! The night before I was going to pick the car up I was frigging gonna cry but luckily the last place I called, RACV would do it for me. And believe me, I rang every bloody insuring joint in the Yellow Pages!!
It's so bullcrap if you ask me, you can ring the same places a few times, and get different people, and they'll give you different quotes.
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