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MG MGA - silverstone & mga values

an after thought on looking at so many MGAs that were for sale , is the agreed value on your car set high enough? I spoke with Mathew at Peter Best ins about this & he agreed that in his view a lot of us would be short by a fair amount if we had a total loss & were looking to replace with the same standard of car ? that is if you could find one at the time .I dont think that the increase in premium would be so great & could give some peace of mind? just a thought
Colin & Theresa
colin daly

Good point Colin, and in most cases there is no increase in premium for agreed value, providing you can provide evidence. Mine is agreed at 18k and my annual premium is 68.50 fully comp.

I also agree that it would be impossible to reasonably replace many of our cars, simply because there are so few to chose from on the open market. For those with genuinely well restored (or original) cars, the only real option would be a new rebuild, way over the cost that any insurers would agree!

One problem, in my view, being that the "book" value (taking "Practical Classics" as a guide) is way below what cars are advertised (and sold) for.

For example, let's take an MGA roadster "in superb condition in all respects, superbly maintained with no major faults and original registration plate" (not age related). Should be available privately for 15K or 21.5K for a twin cam! Re registered cars (I suppose that includes all re-imports) can be worth up to 20% less. How do they come up with these numbers?


Neil McGurk

Hi Neil, Mine is only valued at £11500 - and I pay over £100 insurance - who are you with? - Cheers Cam
Cam Cunningham

Cam I'm with "Chaucer Classic Car" through "One Call", I got the quote from moneysupermarket.com.

I pay the same for my 3.8 Jag Mk2, but for some reason they dropped the agreed value to 17.5K on that one. I will provide a valuation next year as the same premium was offered with 20K.

I know postcode can have an effect and I guess I can tick all the low risk boxes. (no claims/convictions, locked garage etc.) I also put a 3k annual mileage, but I think you can have more without affecting the premium. The good thing about the online quotes is you can keep changing the figures to see if it affects the quote.
Neil McGurk

Neil

That is cheap insurance. Does it include roadside recovery?

My insurance is £116 and includes agreed value (£14,000); garaged except away from home; unlimited mileage; European cover; and roadside recovery - UK & Europe.

That said, I sometimes wonder about roadside recovery. For me it is a matter of pride to be able to fix my car. I cannot think of more shame than being trailered home. When I blew an oil filter gasket on the M6 and lost all my oil, I still made it up a slip road; then walked 2 miles to the nearby village to buy a suitable wrench, new oil filter and more oil. Drove it home head held high.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve,
No, recovery is not fully included. i.e. It does include home and roadside assistance, but with an 80 quid excess. I have several vehicles on the road and it's much cheaper to have an AA membership.
Neil McGurk

Neil, I think your ins sounds great I pay £162 for full comp with an agreed value of 15k, recovery and euro cover, with limited milage at 3k witch I thought was pretty good and i think I tick most of the box's apart posibly for post code (almost town centre) I do however have an 1800B engine and 5 speed box conversion and I wonder if that might not help,
cheers vin (53 year old little fat bloke with dilusions of normality)
V Rafter

VR

You are paying too much. I also have the same engine upgrades, differential upgrade, sports screen etc. All declared with the insurer. Also no restricted mileage.

I will post my insurer contact details this evening as Neil already has.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve, Thankyou ill certainly be shoping around in the future. vin
V Rafter

Thanks Neil - that sounds a good deal - mine is similar to Steve's - with Adrian Flux. But I think I must up my agreed value a bit in line with what Colin has said - even bearing in mind that mine is a re-import (with no owner history before 1996) with an age related plate .
Cam Cunningham

Cam

It's your postcode so near to Toxteth that's your problem!! How you can even get insurance beats me! How many sets of wheels have you lost to date?

Steve
Steve Gyles

Vin

My insurance is by RH Specialist Insurance Division of Brentwood, Essex. Tel: 01277 206519. They insure through Equity Red Star. I have been with them for about 5 years. Price seems quite reasonable.

Steve
Steve Gyles

I have been thinking about the 'Agreed Value' insurance and there is something nagging my brain. I think we discussed the topic a few years back.

It is worth noting that the agreed value policy will pay you that amount for total loss. However, I have a sneaky feeling that it is also the maximum they will pay out for repair. Thereby lies the problem for many of us home builders in that we do not include labour costs in our rebuilds and I guess an element of this has set the levels of valuation of our cars. If they were sent to professional repairers following a crash, I fear the cost could on ocassions exceed the agreed value and the insurers would declare the car a write off.

Any experts out there?

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve, of course you are right! I am not sure where your problem lies though?

The agreed value is the maximum. Makes no difference if the car is torched, stolen or damaged "beyond economic repair", all are total loss.

You have to think of the agreed value as the open market value, i.e. what you would reasonably expect to get if you had to sell the car now.

However, in the case of accident damage, you would, in most cases, be offered to purchase the remains.
Neil McGurk

Neil

Take my car for example; initial purchase price, transportation from the USA, import duties, rebuild by myself, all came to £15,000 (I have all the receipts). Had I instead bought the same wreck from the likes of Bob West and commissioned him to rebuild it, I would have had a bill for approx £25,000. As you rightly say, the agreed value is for open market prices, so do you think an insurance company would have agreed a £25,000 value with me? I doubt it.

The classic car values appear to have stabilised at prices determined by us home restorers where labour is free.

All I was trying to say is that when professional rebuilders get their hands on the accident repair, the £15,000 spent on new parts etc, very quickly gets eaten up by labour costs, so it is common for the cars to be written off. But, as you say we, the home builders, can take the bits home and start again! Pity about the poor sod who paid for a professional rebuild. On the basis of what you said he won't get his money back.

Steve

Steve Gyles

That's right, but the same poor devil wouldn't get his money back if he sold the car either!

I suppose that is the difference between a classic car and a new car. With a new car you can always get a replacement car on the insurance. (Mind you the premium is a little more than £68.25!)

It's a good example that you quote. Normally the insurers will match the price paid with the agreed value, but only up to a point. You will need a valuation report for cars above book value and I personally suspect anything over 20,000 would be difficult for an MGA. However, it depends on individuals in each brokerage to decide at the end of the day.

I don't think you can compare cost and value so directly. Take, for example, the cost to fully restore an MGBGT, compared to its open market value when finished. To simplify the argument, you could say that, once the open market value exceeds the personal value, you would sell the car. In other words we keep our cars because they are worth more to us than their market value!

Drive safely,

Neil
Neil McGurk

Hi Steve, somewhat anti scouse today! Yes I have an L40 post code which might reflect my higher premium - but I am 20 miles from Toxteth and have only lost 4 sets of wheels ( not chrome)- strangely enough they haven't touched the tool kit! Sorry Colin - we seem to have hijacked your posting . I was talking to a chap at Leighton hall on Sunday who was inspecting my car - he had just purchased an MGA from Bob West but not taken delivery - he looked a little peeved when I told him I paid £9k for mine 6 years ago - guess he paid at least double that - cheers Cam
Cam Cunningham

Only 4 sets Cam! Not bad for Liverpool. But I do seem to remember you saying that since Liverpool became a City of Culture in 2008 they do at least now leave the car jacked up on books and not bricks.

Cheers

Steve
Steve Gyles

We went to the Coys auction on Saturday where their was a superb MGA 1959 1500 said to have had 350 hours work , l/hand now r/hand & mostly replaced! reserve was 25,000 to 30,000 it reached 19.000 + premium & vat?? no/sale- so is this the top price for an MGA bearing in mind the number of MG people present & where they had come from !! I say again consider the ins/total loss value of your MGA
Colin
colin daly

I would have thought that £19k for a LHD conversion was about right. So it looks as though I should up my valuation at the next renewal.
Steve - I have a couple of good sets of encyclopedias now!!
Cam Cunningham

We know that the complete but rotten MkII convertible needing total restoration auctioned by H&H earlier this year went for £7500 + commissions = £8500 so any car on the road is in theory, and surely in reality, worth a lot more than that.

Malcolm
Malcolm Asquith

Malcolm If you mean the auction at buxton (light blue A)I would have to agree, it was a tea bag but there seemed to be a bit of a feeding frenzy going on that day with many cars from the same collection and in similar condition reaching silly prices that they may not on another day,this is only my opinion but it was echo'd in a piece i read someware
V Rafter

Steve,
My policy is an agreed value. It also had an option, which i did not take up, to increase the agreed value by 25% or 50% to accomodate the situation you cited about repair cost exceeding agreed value.
Colin
C Manley

This thread was discussed between 13/07/2009 and 16/07/2009

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