Track Day Insurance - any ideas ?

[350gtr]

Does anyone know any companies that do track day insurance for an Ultima ?

I am insured with Footman James but they exclude track days.

I tried Competition Car Insurance - they will insure but it is v expensive.

I was told AON were good but they wouldn't quote !

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

Richard

[james]

How expensive do you call very expensive? If you're taking out this sort of insurance, they take into account how many track days you've been on, and they determine that by how many times you've been insured with them, so it gets cheaper the more you do. However, it won't be cheap.

In practice, your road insurance probably does cover you. If you look at the wording, it'll most probably exclude racing, time trials, testing etc., but a track day is impossible to seperate from any other driving that you do on private land. Of course, you may have a job if you make a claim and you end up having to take the insurance company to court to prove your point, but read your policy carefully.

The alternative is to drive sensibly, and you won't need to worry about insurance, as you won't have an accident.

James

[ultimasimon]

But what happens if the accident is not your fault??

[350gtr]

James,

Competition Car Insurance have changed their policy. They no longer do a price per 1000. I think it used to be £10 per 1000 insured. ie you could insure 20000 of damage for £200. Their new scheme loads performance cars and has a minimum of half the car value. I was quoted a minimum of £ 400 for a days cover for £25k!

This is about double the rate from last year.

Maybe cheaper to hire a complete track for myself so there is nothing else to hit! ( or hit me !)

[MattYorke]

Are you sure footman james won't insure at all? I got some from them once, I think it was 25 quid extra, per driver, per day, and 3rd party only.

[JCof T.O.]

In Canada I have not been able to get any insurance for timed events. However, if you take a driver training course that uses your own vehicle it is not considered an event but a school. In that case the insurance does cover and you are not even required to be wearing a helmet while going around the track.

P.S. I always wear a helmet and highly recomend it.

[james]

350gtr said: James,

Competition Car Insurance have changed their policy. They no longer do a price per 1000. I think it used to be £10 per 1000 insured. ie you could insure 20000 of damage for £200. Their new scheme loads performance cars and has a minimum of half the car value. I was quoted a minimum of £ 400 for a days cover for £25k!

This is about double the rate from last year.

Maybe cheaper to hire a complete track for myself so there is nothing else to hit! ( or hit me !)

Blimey. That's a bit pricey. They always used to do that cost per £1000 worth of damage, and it seemed to work pretty well (since the majority of track day accidents are repairable for a few grand). I suppose that they were paying out too many "few grands".

Mind you, I've seen various people getting out of crashed cars saying "oh well, never mind. The insurance will pay." I often think that, perhaps if they hadn't got ythe backup of insurance, they wouldn't have driven like knobs and crashed.

Another way of looking at it is to "self insure". If you're going to do 10 track days in a year, and it's going to cost you £400 a time, you can take the risk that you'll do less than £4,000 worth of damage in a year, and just pay for it yourself. If you don't do any damage, you'll be ahead.

Yet another alternative, if you're doing a lot of track days. Buy a cheap track day car (an ex-racer is ideal) and don't worry about it. You can pick up a fun ex-race car for a couple of grand, and they'll be just as quick as the high powered sporty road cars you see out there, and you don't need to worry about damage. Repair is pretty cheap too, as a new shell can usually be picked up for a couple of hundred quid, even if you total the car.

James