Aug 21, 2012 - Covering Your ASSets: A little talk about Hagerty Collector insurance... Protecting your CR-X / CRX from thieves and bad drivers

Our cars are not an investment, they are a passion. With so much money and time spent by thousands of enthusiasts to build their particular vehicle of choice, it makes me wonder why this topic doesn't come up often on the sites/forums I've visited...

Insurance.

Once in a while a thread will pop up that strikes fear and anger in the hearts of enthusiasts everywhere: The STOLEN thread. I've often put myself in their shoes: how can someone can go from pouring hours and hours, thousands upon thousands of dollars into a car and have it gone in a heartbeat; stolen by some punk thief trying to make a fast buck by parting out the car or worse... vandalizing/destroying it. I wonder about the aftermath dealing with insurance and fighting over every last dollar; the insurance company trying not to pay out too much, and the grieving owner trying to squeeze every last penny they can out of the insurance company in order to start a new build with hope sprung a-new. It scares the shit out of me.

A Stolen CR-X - Reading this person's "stolen" thread made me very sad

I'd been hearing rumors on the Canadian RHD enthusiast forums lately about people having a difficulty insuring some RHD cars in Canada with collision coverage due to the valuation being nearly impossible to verify on some of the models without North American equivalencies. Rumors like this are nothing new to the JDM/RHD scene up here in Canada since many Provincial governments, British Columbia and Ontario being the two main instigators, have been paying more attention and tightening the regulations regarding their operation on the streets and they are no doubt working side-by-side with the insurers (in BC they have it a little worse because auto insurance is run by the government).

Since I want my project protected as much as possible in the event the unthinkable happens, and because one of the companies specifically named in these forum posts is the my insurer for my CR-X, I decided to speak to my insurance broker to discuss my insurance options with him. He suggested that the best course of action was to start with an appraisal, and armed with that, we could take it to my insurance company and see how much extra they would want to insure my CR-X based on the value in the appraisal. Fair enough.

I called around to various appraisal companies and spoke at great length to the owner of one of them, who claims to have experience appraising JDM RHD automobiles. He had suggested during our conversation that when discussing insurance with my broker I should inquire about Collector insurance. He told me about a gentleman he knew who had gotten his appraisal done, and went thru regular insurance. When he needed to make a claim, the insurance company disputed the appraisal and low-balled his settlement. The man ended up fighting it and after lawyer fees only got a couple thousand more than the original settlement offer.

I called my broker the next morning.

As it turns out, my car does qualify under Hagerty's Collector Car insurance policy and it is remarkably cheap to get. The annual rate for my CR-X, if appraised at $10,000 with a 5000km allowance, and an 200km roadside package (with flatbed towing) rang in at under $400/yr. So... I can drive my car up to 5000km per year, anytime, I don't have to call anyone ahead of time, it's fully insured to the agreed value, and it's covered under a storage policy when it's not being driven, AND I get emergency roadside assistance (with a flatbed trailer)... all for less than $400 per year! My regular insurance provider was approximately $500 for 4 months coverage plus the storage policy and no guarantee that they would honor an appraised value of the car or even insure a JDM CR-X in the first place... This was a no brainer. Frankly, I was a bit disappointed my broker hadn't mentioned this option to me sooner, but apparently Hagerty has only been operating in Canada since 2009 and I wasn't driving my CR-X much between 2009 and now.

I know that this type of insurance wouldn't appeal to a lot of enthusiasts who daily drive their cars, but for those of us who don't, I'm shocked that it isn't talked about more frequently on the forums and boards. I urge anyone who doesn't drive their CRX/CR-X daily to look into it.

EDIT: July 19th, 2014. Apparently the CRX does NOT qualify for Hagerty Insurance. See my post dated July 18th, 2014 for more details.

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