Insurance denied claim because of aftermarket exhaust
 

https://driving.ca/subaru/auto-news/...his-sports-car

In Ontario Desjardins denied claim for totaled car because of aftermarket exhaust.
After it become public they agreed to pay.

They said that any modifications should be reported to them. I guess they just want to slap you with higher rates.

It seems like insurance vs mod car campaign has another wave coming. Desjardins probably loosing money somewhere else and trying to minimize claims payouts.

Just to clarify it is not me or my car.

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145187

Already posted

Of course they want to be paid for mods. Why the hell would they cover mods if you were just paying for a base rate car? You pay a premium based on the value of the car. If all of a sudden your car is damaged and you say "oh no it was modded so I want that money as well" you should be shit outta luck. You have money to mod you should have money to insure those mods as well.

As I said in the OTHER thread on this I bet there is far more to the story than we are hearing or it was a simple error not some big conspiracy to rip off the poor car mod crowd.

EDIT: what @Tcoat said...

Or, here's a thought, they want to make sure you are paying the correct amount to cover what you are insuring so they can pay you for it if there is an incident.

Adding several thousand dollars to a car, either by purchasing the next trim level up at purchase or adding it aftermarket, the insurance is going to increase.

There must be more to the story. Or maybe sketchy insurance...

If my house burned to the ground after I put in more expensive windows, or flooring, or,.... but didn't tell the insurance company, I would still be covered.
Might not get the expensive windows, but the insurance co. would still pay out after adjustments etc.

Bet there is more to the story but it didn't make good "news" so they ran with that angle.
I have used that company for decades with zero issues. They are not some shady operation. Pretty hard for shady companies to get away with much in Ontario anyway since it is so tightly controlled and regulated.
House is a different matter. You would get the set value no matter what you had changed. Now if you put a whole addition on your house, didn't tell them and the fire started there you may be shit outta luck.

It's one thing if you WANT the insurance to cover all the aftermarket parts, you claim them & pay additional. If you don't care to pay more for insurance & still want to do your car up then that's on you at the end. If an incident happens the insurance company does it's usual thing except you won't get paid out for the aftermarket parts. As an example your crunched front end (fenders, hood, bumper, crash beam etc.. That has nothing to do with your exhaust or wheels. They have to come through for you no matter what that's why you are paying them, just don't expect the parts to paid for by them. (Excluding cages or roll bars)

Yep! It is the normal you gotta pay to play or takes your chances.

My personal rule is.. no matter what car I do up I want to be able to replace it out of my own pocket worse case before I am relying on anyone / any company. I would be crushed if I couldn't replace one of my gems. The insurance is a must but I almost look at it as.. it's more for them rather than me :bonk:

Not to mention here in Toronto we paaaaaaaaaaaaaay pay pay these insurance companies. :thumbdown:

For me, at my age, driving record and location insurance is dirt cheap and a far better deal than trying to squirrel away replacement value for a car.
For my 2020 Hakone and the wife's top trim 2018 Outback with full replacement coverage accident forgiveness and a $500 deductible we only pay around $900 a YEAR.
This is why I always find the "What do you pay for insurance?" threads that come up hilarious since there is not any possible way people can compare.
You guys pay, pay, pay for everything though! Buddy of mine just bought a $3.2 million two bedroom bungalow that would have cost about $150,000 here.

This made me wonder what would happen if the aftermarket part, caused the loss? For example, you add an expensive exhaust system to the car, but a fault in the installation causes the car to catch fire six months later, and the insurance company knows that from the remains.

I suppose they would cover the car anyway, not the exhaust system but....

Going to depend upon the company, your policy and how far they want to push things.
They do sort of have an out if you did not declare the modified exhuast.

From the other thread on this subjects

If they can prove that a mod was the direct and only cause of the accident they may deny coverage. It would be almost impossible to prove though.
The bigger thing is undeclared mods where people expect to get paid. They really frown on that!

It also depends on exactly what coverage and policy you have. There is not really a one rule policy and you can get more or less coverage (to the basic requirements) depending on what you pay for. For example I pay for replacement value coverage. Costs me about $50 a year but if my car is totaled they don't just pay out book value they buy me an equal car one year or more NEWER than mine.

Here are some excerpts from a "typical" Ontario policy that show how they could not pay out. People really should actually sit down and read their damned policies!

"You agree to notify us promptly in writing of any significant change of which you are
aware in your status as a driver, owner or lessee of a described automobile. You also
agree to let us know of any change that might increase the risk of an incident or affect our
willingness to insure you at current rates.
You must promptly tell us of any change in information supplied in your original
application for insurance, such as additional drivers, or a change in the way a described
automobile is used."

You agree not to use or allow anyone to use the automobile in a race or speed test or for
any illegal trade or transportation. (THIS may be why he was originally denied since we have no idea what the accident involved)

Property Not Covered
Under this Section, we won't cover claims for damage to property carried in or upon the
automobile,

"Limitations on Your Coverage
intentionally failed to notify us of any significant changes as required
or were convicted of a criminal offence involving the operation of an automobile".

https://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/en/auto/f...ms/1215E.2.pdf

I mean that's kind of a far reach, oil on exhaust may catch fire, fuel yea.. but if we are using those scenarios it can come down to anything. If a tire blowout happens on the hwy and causes a wreck does the insurance blame the tire company in theory? We can make up a bunch of those in our mind but reality is just be aware and keep maintaining your vehicle. Pay your insurance company the least as possible & keep enjoying your car :D

We would have no enjoyment in life if we always thought the worst of the worst every time with anything.

I mention this specifically because I almost had it happen many years ago, but it was the factory exhaust on a '77 Honda Civic wagon. The exhaust was either missing a heat shield or was installed improperly, came in contact with the underside of the rear cabin floor, caused a hotspot and scorched the carpet, burning a 6 inch hole in it before I put it out.

I can't catch a break on insurance. 31 now, never a claim all these years & clean record. When I was young they kept saying it would get cheaper one day G1,G2,G (with driving school for price break), turned 25 (suppose to be cheaper after) etc, not once have I gotten a break lol.. Still pay over $2200 for my Brz currently.

Yea Toronto is just a wild place right now... Between housing prices, Insurance and businesses not allowed to open it's been rough. I thought I did good selling my house before covid, now I'm just shaking my head looking at places :thumbdown:

Wow! I see where you are coming from my friend :eyebulge:

Yep, dealership and Honda rep said "Hmm, that should never happen". They replaced both the exhaust and the carpet under warranty.

This is the same Civic that they also repainted due to "spider veining" in the paint.

Both were done in the last few months of warranty, and I was the second owner of the car.

The universe just didn't want you to have that civic huh :(

Actually it was a great car, I loved it. Other than those two things it was trouble free for 200K miles which is pretty amazing for a 1977 small car.

Man 900$.... I pay that in 4 months for one car.

Ask Frost about the (IIRC) oil cooler and his S2000... Last I heard he was sueing the shop who did the install. (faulty installation, oil in engine compartment, fire).

you're also not 600 years old!

This is a fact, I am near only a fraction of his age..

Damn - now I want to know what shop it was so I can stay the hell away..

Toronto is a big factor in all this. I moved into London for a year and my insurance premium dropped significantly (down from ~150/mo to ~90/mo IIRC) and I was about your age (32) at the time. Back in Toronto, and back paying Toronto rates now though!

I think I'm around $1860 a year with monthly payments. I was with TD the year I got mine and they tried to jacked the price up $600 after the first year for no reason.

Once the car is payed off there are a couple of boxes I can untick

Guess I need to move away from GTA. Thought my insurance was "affordable"...

A bit less than a grand a year on Vancouver Island. We just got a rebate as Covid has brought accidents and payouts down.

And you guys have nice driving roads, coastal scenery and mountains as well?
Boo-urns.

I think it was actually a reputable shop though. Frost always uses good people, just had a bad one-off.

Kind of like I got screwed once by Pfaff tuning/motorsports (never had a bad experience with Pfaff BMW though).

That sucks - hopefully the fact that the shop is reputable, means they'll have more incentive to make customers whole when they screw up.

That all make sense in calculation of damage value, but that usually only small part of your premium.
Big part is liability and for that calculation of risks is a main factor. Such as location, age, accident history etc.
What I am worring is just reporting Performance mode, might tick extra risk factor and raise your premium way more than value of modes.
So have anyone reported Performance mode to their insurance company and what outcome it had?

I have a feeling no one did.

If you are with a normal type insurance company 95% of car enthusiast's are not going to claim anything performance related. If you were looking to get insured with claiming performance in mind go right to a different insurance company like Hagerty for example that is more specialized in that type of thing.

Also if you are really worried don't go out on a limb and start making it harder for yourself with your insurance company lol.. You either decide you don't say anything for the minor parts you have or you go all in and pay extra / go with a specialized insurance company for no hassles.

You are only insuring the value of the mods so as long as you are not declaring a change in use of the vehicle they can not change your rate.
Some things to keep in mind though is that there are some fine print items in almost all policies that mean you could have coverage denied.

If you are charged and convicted of a criminal act while operating a motor vehicle they will deny all coverage. For example if you have an accident and are convicted of dangerous driving that is a criminal act and you would not be covered. If convicted with stunt driving or careless driving then they are not criminal acts (they are highway traffic act) and you would be fully covered. Mind you your new premiums would take a shitkicking either way.

If you are participating in any form of organized "race type" event and have not declared such participation in the use of vehicle then again you could be denied. This means if you smack it up in even something as simple as an AutoX event you may be out of luck. You would still have full coverage going to and from such event though.

All in all the rules are there to protect both the company and it's customers since as much as we may hate it they are there to make a profit and if they are paying out to every single person that totals their car on a track then the rest of us end up paying for it in the long run.

As has been said a few times though this thread I believe there was much more to the story that started it and we just didn't hear because it it wouldn't have sold papers (or got clicks) if they told all the facts.

Reading this thread makes me think Ontario sucks. Is that the English or French in that region, need to know which insults to hurl. ;)

The system works very well for those that are honest. It does a really good job of weeding out the scammers and entitled though so some will whine about how "unfair" it is.

This is why you can buy track insurance. It can be expensive buy so is a totaled car. Track insurance is bought for a certain day so probably less than paying normal insurance 365.25 days. Good friend had an Elise called his insurance and told them he was going to the track with Apex Driving Academy, High performance driver education. They told him since it is driver education he is covered under normal insurance.

the article makes it sound like he was only after replacement coverage for his vehicle and not the mods but simply having a catback exhaust resulted in Desjardins denying his claim and cancelling his policy. I don't think this was a matter of the owner wanting his mods covered but getting the value of the base car since he wrote it off.

Which is imo bullshit unless the insurance company can prove that the catback exhaust modification was a contributing factor to the accident.

I still say the article is not telling the whole story behind the denial. They (or him) are just telling the part that makes it new worthy as a David and Goliath story. There is more to this than we will ever know

It's got a bit of me concerned because all this time I thought if you modified your car and were in a crash, your vehicle at its book value is covered as long as the modification cannot be proven to be the cause of the accident while the value of the mods would not be covered.

If insurance can deny claims and cancel policies simply cuz we modded our cars w/o telling them then I will need to drive VERY carefully until next feb when I can go with a more mod friendly insurance company like haggerty.

I was in an accident in 2014 with my first car (black ice on a bridge on the 416, vehicles were stopped in both lanes, no where to go). Had quite a few mods, including engine, suspension, brakes, even swapped the seats out which removed the side air bags. No issues with insurance. The woman I had hit (or someone else, it was never fully clear) waited until almost the very last day she could to file an injury suit. insurance took care of it.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Like Tcoat has been saying; there's likely more to the story not being told, or something being mis-told.