Insurance depreciation: Time to sell?

[Setanta]

So Shannons sent me their comprehensive insurance renewal. In the 3 years I've owned it my DC2R's insurance has dropped from $20,000 (what I paid for it) to $13,500 pay out minus excess. Now I get that cars depreciate but Redbook is a crock and for a low km ITR (47K kms) it becomes irreplaceable for a car in this condition that gets pampered to death and driven 3 days a week at the very most.

I have 3 options:
Sell up (which I don't want to do with the amount of OCD I've put into this car). New owner would be able to insure for a higher amount because that's how it works strangely enough.
Ring Shannons and try and negotiate (the person I spoke to last time it dropped by $2000 was a poor example of customer service).
Find another insurance company - not likely given that most use Redbook BS to value the car.

I'm pretty damn devastated over this especially as we have 3 cars insured through Shannons and have only made 2 claims on my partner's car - both not at fault and both resolved through the other driver's insurance. Interestingly, the EK CXi has stayed flat at $5500 minus excess as has the E30 which is under-insured at 3000 given that coupes, even "e"s are increasing in sales price.

Is anyone else experiencing this problem with insurance?

[knobosaurus]

That really sucks man. I'd try talking to them about agreed value. Under your circumstances and low km, its value is far above 13.5. I've always heard good things about shannons and I'd like to think they're reasonable with something like this.

[gunpoons]

What can I say, insurance is bullshit, when I first bought my dc5r it was 2 years old, I was 28 and agreed value was $32k, i paid $780 a year for my premium.
Sure it's now 10 years old, but I'm 34, and value is $14k but they still want $760 a year premium!!!
How the fuck does that work
Maybe it they hurt us cause Honda are fuckn thieves when it comes to spare parts

[gunpoons]

P.s. I told em to get fcked and have run three years no insurance

[plAythiNG]

Imo $13.5k is a very high amount. When i was shopping around for a dc2r. The highest anyone was willing to insure it for was $10k. Standard was $6.5k.

[Setanta]

Thanks for the commiserations guys, this crap is messing with me.

My situation: 46yo, 4 adult kids (plus a 5yo), paying $2800 for the 3 cars per annum. Car is not my DD unless the E30 is off the road. Not a huge amount in terms of revenue for Shannons in the scheme of things (lets face it, it's a drop in the ocean) but you'd think they could do better than that.

Shannons used to be fantastic - then something changed.

I'm almost at the point of considering using it as a trade in on an 86 because at least I'll know that I can get better insurance *if* something happened to the car that would get me back in a decent car and not relegated to a bland-beige-box. I never want to claim insurance, but I do want peace of mind in the worst case scenario and seeing that I paid cash for this car with money that I'd saved for some time, I would like to feel more secure.

I get depreciation, but I also have an idea of what good condition DC2Rs are worth and while a car is only worth what a buyer will pay, my pride and joy is in better than average condition.

[gunpoons]

Insurance depreciation: Time to sell?

Have you considered just going third party and pocketing the difference?
I hardly drive my dc5 so choose not to comp insure it, and in three years have saved nearly 3 grand,
Sure it's a risk but once your 'high risk' car drops in value I think it's an option that needs to be looked at, for me living in the bush with a lock up garage it's money in the bank, I can't say I'd be comfortable doing the same living in Syd city though

[Lonewolf]

are you on limited use policy?
I am for the astra (weekend use only) and it dropped the premium a fair bit... insured with Shannons.

Usually they are negotiable on the insured sum, point out the low KM's etc and should be able to get it bumped up.

[Setanta]

I might try them again and see if I get a different customer service rep to talk to, although last time it was just a case of "Redbook says". Admittedly I've spoken to other reps at Shannons who were more helpful.

I'll look into the limited use side while I'm at it and also see if I can bump the E30 up as the replacement cost of those suckers is on the rise.

[sleepingperformance]

I understand this is a bit of a different situation but here is what I learnt about Shannons when I was last dealing with them.

I wanted to cover my race car for fire & theft. After speaking to them and mentioning all the mods etc, they gave me a sum that they were willing to cover the car for sight unseen. After using a bit of trade language on them, they said that they were willing to cover the car for just about any figure I wanted if I took the car to one of their offices for a in depth inspection and they would independantly evaluate the mods etc and come to an agreement from there.

Have a crack from this angle, saying that these cars will more tha likely become classics in the future and that the last DC2R in Pheonix Yellow in similar condition went for near on $20K (unless your car was the one purchased out of QLD, in which case thumbs up)

[Setanta]

Got it in one. It's Dean's old car which I bought out of Qld with 29K kms on it.

[Shaun]

I was dealing with Just Car, but the same thing should apply.

Called for a quote and they gave me an agreed value of 14k (on my DC5). I wasn't happy with that and spoke to a couple of guys out there and came to an arrangement with moving the premium around enough for them to get to almost 19k agreed value without a HUGE jump in what I was paying. I'd tell you what a 20year old with a highly modified dc5r pays yearly for insurance, but you would probably crap your pants..

[Kin]

Lol.. you think life's hard with a DC5. Try insuring a modified rx7 when you are in your 20's.

[PG_DC5]

Mine is valued for 19k and pay about 800/yr with aami.
23 yrs old, but country town has lower premiums

[freakygeek]

Yeah getting a decent amount of cover for the DC2R sucks balls.

It's just rubbish, they try and shaft you when it comes time for a claim too, as I've been through with my motorcycle insurance with QBE recently.

I had a 'new for old' policy for my bike up to 2 years old. When I crashed the bike was 13 months old with 8,000km. They said they weren't able to settle with a replacement motorcycle citing things such as the replacement bike not being available.
I called bullshit and wrote an email detailing how new 2013 bikes were cheaper than my initial purchase price and how they could stick their offer of $13500 cash and give me a new motorcycle worth $18k. I got what I wanted.

Insurance company policy seems to be 'shaft them with a shit offer, if they complain, then give them what they want'. Too many people just accept their shit offer and that's how they win.

Similar scenario for me as you Setanta, 4 vehicles insured with various levels of cover, around $3200/pa for that. Can't drive them all at once obviously and feel as though I'm just paying for nothing mostly. It sucks.