Insurance denied claim because of aftermarket exhaust

[CrowsFeast]

Originally Posted by daiheadjai

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

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).

[daiheadjai]

Originally Posted by CrowsFeast

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.

[Lim]

Originally Posted by Berserker

It's one thing if you WANT the insurance to cover all the aftermarket parts, you claim them & pay additional. ...

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.

[Berserker]

Originally Posted by Lim

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.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Lim

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.

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.

[jeepmor]

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

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by jeepmor

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.

[Grady]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

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.

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.

[saltywetman]

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.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by saltywetman

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

[saltywetman]

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.

[CrowsFeast]

Originally Posted by saltywetman

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.

[BoxerRumble]

Following this thread, great comments. I am also in Ontario, and I am in the midst of buying an FRS, trying ot line up insurance. When I lived in the US I had State Farm which was great. When we moved back to Canada, we got State Farm Canada which got bought by DeJardines. I called the office and the admin (not the agent) told me that the story above was true, and any mod to any car, even bigger wheels (gulp), invalidates my DesJardin policy.

So today I was speaking to a local broker who specializes in modded cars. He knew about this story too, but I did not read this thread yet, so I didn't ask him if he knew how true it was. He did said that if a car has a lot of visual mods and/or "light" performance mods, non-power mods like coilovers, or power mods that "may not actually do anything" like CAIs or CBEs, he can get select Ontario insurance companies to cover them - he said a company called Intact was better for that. He said that headers and/or tunes count as "genuine" power mods and for that he had an insurance company called "Facility Association" that will cover these, but it is not really a company but some association that insurance companies contribute too, for "last chance" people or cars, eg. extremely high risk drivers. It sounded a lot more expensive, and he also said since they don't pay commission, he'd have to take on insuring my whole house + other cars to make a package deal. Hmm.

We talked about how it may not even be worth me buying a modded FRS or BRZ -because insurance companies don't like mods, it would almost be better to buy an STI or or maybe the new BRZ coming out soon that has 225 hp stock. He also spoke about Hagarty but he said then I could not commute with my car, I might have to keep my civic for that, and keep an FRS/BRZ as a sunday driver/ fun car. Hmm the more I think about it, the more I think just do what 95% of people do (as mentioned above), or go with Intact and get all the mods covered except any true power ones that may be in the car.

Funny, when I had a 911 Porsche, it had some tasteful mods like a stainless steel exhaust and I didn't even think to tell the insurance company, in part because I bought it like that...

[soundman98]

Now I'm really curious what Canadian law says that allows aftermarket mods to invalidate the entire policy...