Insurance question for car mods

[Antimus]

So, I have a question.
If I was to modify a car with a new slightly bigger turbocharger, and an ECU remap to match, at a garage that didn't have a Dyno so couldn't give me an accurate read of the new BHP, only a "20% increase"
If I then insure that car with Admiral and say "20% increase" which is the maximum they will allow.

Let's say I have some kind of accident, would they stick my car (assuming it's driveable) onto a dyno and check the power themselves?

I don't want to risk it being a 21% increase and them voiding my insurance, I know I could get it dyno'd myself to be sure but given some give different results than others I don't know how much stock to put into that sort of thing.

To be honest I'm 99% going to move from Admiral just to be safe but I don't want to have to claim that my car has a 25% increase and paying more premium just to be safe for that possible variation, then find out it was only an 18% increase.

p.s. No I haven't had an accident, this is purely hypothetical

[paulmoonraker]

Go with a specialist insurer. They are much more sensible with modifications.

It is unlikely that an insurer post crash would attempt to verify the power output with a rolling road (the car might not even work). However, they may seek independent advice on what power the modifications would be capable of producing.

For example, its widely known that the standard turbo on my STi is only good for 350bhp, regardless of what other stuff you do to it.

[ZOLLAR]

Antimus said:

So, I have a question.
If I was to modify a car with a new slightly bigger turbocharger, and an ECU remap to match, at a garage that didn't have a Dyno so couldn't give me an accurate read of the new BHP, only a "20% increase"
If I then insure that car with Admiral and say "20% increase" which is the maximum they will allow.

Let's say I have some kind of accident, would they stick my car (assuming it's driveable) onto a dyno and check the power themselves?

I don't want to risk it being a 21% increase and them voiding my insurance, I know I could get it dyno'd myself to be sure but given some give different results than others I don't know how much stock to put into that sort of thing.

To be honest I'm 99% going to move from Admiral just to be safe but I don't want to have to claim that my car has a 25% increase and paying more premium just to be safe for that possible variation, then find out it was only an 18% increase.

p.s. No I haven't had an accident, this is purely hypothetical

Admiral don't cover a turbocharger unless it's standard on the car and is a like for like replacement.
So if you were to upgrade to a bigger one they should decline cover.

[Nick3point2]

I've always been asked for 'approximate' power increase. So I'd say there will be atleast 5% either side of the quoted approximate power increase.

[The1Driver]

Head over to Greenlight Insurance

[Antimus]

ZOLLAR said:

Admiral don't cover a turbocharger unless it's standard on the car and is a like for like replacement.
So if you were to upgrade to a bigger one they should decline cover.

Wasn't aware of that, thanks. Makes this a moot point!

The1Driver said:

Head over to Greenlight Insurance

Will add them to my list, I've got Adrian Flux, Chris Knott, Sky Insurance and now Greenlight, should be able to get a decent deal between those.

Thanks for the help

[paulmoonraker]

What car?

[paulmoonraker]

paulmoonraker said:

It is unlikely that an insurer post crash would attempt to verify the power output with a rolling road (the car might not even work).

Thinking about it - I doubt H&S would allow a crashed car, regardless of the amount of damage to do a power run. It might break free, spinning out of control and kill all of the onlookers...

[Antimus]

paulmoonraker said:

What car?

A hypothetical one, so given that most hypothetical questions are based on reality, check my garage

paulmoonraker said:

Thinking about it - I doubt H&S would allow a crashed car, regardless of the amount of damage to do a power run. It might break free, spinning out of control and kill all of the onlookers...

Good point, I can almost hear the screams of insurance investigators diving out of the way as the car careers towards them in an almost Christine-esque moment....

[halo34]

For my skyline I went with an insurer that allowed me to list all the mods separately as a list - I was then asked to give an approximate figure against the totals.

When inevitable as a young fool in a 350 bhp RWD car I wrote it off, I had no problems claiming at all and we agreed a value that was surprisingly close to equivalent cars.

I always find it brought me more peace knowing I had emailed a complete list of mods across so there were no arguments when the issue happened.

I based my power output on cars of a similar stage on the forums, but I guess thats not easy to do.

Sounds like a specialist is the way to go in this case?

[Noger]

Antimus said:

paulmoonraker said:

Thinking about it - I doubt H&S would allow a crashed car, regardless of the amount of damage to do a power run. It might break free, spinning out of control and kill all of the onlookers...

Good point, I can almost hear the screams of insurance investigators diving out of the way as the car careers towards them in an almost Christine-esque moment....

Or take the engine out and put it on a bench dyno.

Or download the map and back calculate.

Or they could, given that it is potential fraud, access your bank accounts for payments to an engine tuner, then ask them what they did.

etc

[McSam]

Noger said:

Or take the engine out and put it on a bench dyno.

Or download the map and back calculate.

Or they could, given that it is potential fraud, access your bank accounts for payments to an engine tuner, then ask them what they did.

etc

I'd give you excellent odds against any of those happening, unless the claim was for a huge amount - hundreds of thousands.

[Antimus]

Noger said:

Or take the engine out and put it on a bench dyno.

Or download the map and back calculate.

Or they could, given that it is potential fraud, access your bank accounts for payments to an engine tuner, then ask them what they did.

etc

You appear to be displaying subtle undertones of assuming I am trying to defraud, please don't, if you read the original post you would see what the hypothetical issue is, that being the garage being unable to give an accurate figure after work being completed. Not me hypothetically trying to get away with saying it's less powerful than it hypothetically is.

Definitely specialist insurance is the way to go, most mainstream appear to treat a non-standard turbo as they would if I strapped a turbo onto a non-turbo engine, i.e. cha-ching.

At this point I'm probably going to end up getting it dyno'd and get an accurate power increase, better to spend the money now that spend more later...Erm, hypothetically of course

[ZOLLAR]

McSam said:

Noger said:

Or take the engine out and put it on a bench dyno.

Or download the map and back calculate.

Or they could, given that it is potential fraud, access your bank accounts for payments to an engine tuner, then ask them what they did.

etc

I'd give you excellent odds against any of those happening, unless the claim was for a huge amount - hundreds of thousands.

But you don't know how much your claim will cost when you're thinking about defrauding an insurer do you so depends on whether you wish to take that risk.

[Antimus]

I feel the need to strangle the guy at the garage for causing me such brainache just because he doesn't have a dyno....

[McSam]

ZOLLAR said:

But you don't know how much your claim will cost when you're thinking about defrauding an insurer do you so depends on whether you wish to take that risk.

Indeed not but the idea that insurers suddenly become CSI with unlimited budget and time to burn on every little detail of your claim isn't something that should be put about all the time!

[Marf]

ZOLLAR said:

Admiral don't cover a turbocharger unless it's standard on the car and is a like for like replacement.
So if you were to upgrade to a bigger one they should decline cover.

They also (IIRC) do not cover chips or ECU changes.

[Antimus]

McSam said:

Indeed not but the idea that insurers suddenly become CSI with unlimited budget and time to burn on every little detail of your claim isn't something that should be put about all the time!

"Grissom, I found a photo from a security camera down the street from the crash, if we look at the cafe across the road there's a spoon on a table, and if we zoom into the reflection on the spoon we can see a the car, and we can find out the speed it was traveling by the exposure speed of the camera and blur on the image, we've got him!"
"Good work!"

I can see it now....

[Antimus]

Marf said:

They also (IIRC) do not cover chips or ECU changes.

They do cover ECU changes up to 20% power increase, as mentioned in the first post

[Marf]

Antimus said:

Marf said:

They also (IIRC) do not cover chips or ECU changes.

They do cover ECU changes up to 20% power increase, as mentioned in the first post

Odd, every time I've had a quote from them and ticked the box for ECU change they've declined to quote. Shrug.