"Imports" and insurance

[55palfers]

I'm looking at buying a Japanese import.

It's via a company in the UK and is a 1994 G Wagen 300 GE.

Just done an insurance quote and if I say it's imported, the premium goes up by 25% and my excess increases by £150 over what it was when I got a quote with no declaration of it being "imported"

As these are built in Germany and my one is exactly the same as all the European ones how do they justify a higher premium?

Probably best to phone I guess and talk to a real person.

[davepoth]

Do you have the full list of differences between a UK and Japanese market car?
Are there any differences on the list (ABS, airbags, STM, tyre width, suspension settings, headlights, stereo system, gear ratios, alloy wheels, bodywork for example) that might make a difference to the risk profile?
Are there enough Japanese market cars in the UK for the insurance company to make a proper risk profile?

I expect the answer to at least one of those questions is no, which will go a long way to explain why the insurance is higher for an imported vehicle even if it looks the same.

[Rick101]

I had a cheaper quote after declaring import.

Just took a bit of time and tweaking on the comparison sites.

[55palfers]

davepoth said:

Do you have the full list of differences between a UK and Japanese market car?
Are there any differences on the list (ABS, airbags, STM, tyre width, suspension settings, headlights, stereo system, gear ratios, alloy wheels, bodywork for example) that might make a difference to the risk profile?
Are there enough Japanese market cars in the UK for the insurance company to make a proper risk profile?

I expect the answer to at least one of those questions is no, which will go a long way to explain why the insurance is higher for an imported vehicle even if it looks the same.

Risk profile - Ha ha!

The car is the same as all EU versions.
Wheels are the ones it left The Fatherland with, ABS is MB regular flavour I expect, speedo reads in KM but that gets changed for MOT, stereo will go as it is on Jap frequencies so a UK one gets fitted, it only has the one airbag on the steering wheel (the same version as my W124 I think)

Insurance Co. opportunity for rip-off as usual.

[HayesDC2]

Depends on the company, much better off going through a specialist with an import instead of the usual bunch from gocompare etc.

[Marc p]

55palfers said:

davepoth said:

Do you have the full list of differences between a UK and Japanese market car?
Are there any differences on the list (ABS, airbags, STM, tyre width, suspension settings, headlights, stereo system, gear ratios, alloy wheels, bodywork for example) that might make a difference to the risk profile?
Are there enough Japanese market cars in the UK for the insurance company to make a proper risk profile?

I expect the answer to at least one of those questions is no, which will go a long way to explain why the insurance is higher for an imported vehicle even if it looks the same.

Risk profile - Ha ha!

The car is the same as all EU versions.
Wheels are the ones it left The Fatherland with, ABS is MB regular flavour I expect, speedo reads in KM but that gets changed for MOT, stereo will go as it is on Jap frequencies so a UK one gets fitted, it only has the one airbag on the steering wheel (the same version as my W124 I think)

Insurance Co. opportunity for rip-off as usual.

There will be minor differences over the car, the insurance company are not charging you a premium because you are more likely to be in an accident, the extra they charge(as with all imports) is because they have to expect that in the instance you are involved in a crash, they have to source replacement parts from Japan, which may work out more expensive, in addition to that, they have to factor in the fact that whilst they are waiting for these parts to come from Japan, you may be in a hire car for much longer than you would of been if the car was an EU car.

So in summary, Japanese imports tend to have a higher insurance claim in the event of an accident.

I am all for complaining about insurance rip-offs, but this is one area where I can understand the difference in price.

[55palfers]

...all well and good if it's an obscure Nissan, but it's a Mercedes Benz, built in Austria.

Parts can easily be sourced from any MB dealer.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Talk to an insurance broker with a specialist imports department - such as Adrian Flux.