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Der Busbesitzer Gruppe Cyber Headquarters Enjoy us in moderation! |
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To insure or not... In the beginning: (names withheld to protect everyone!) I am planning on getting full coverage on my bus. I have enough money in
her now that I'd hate to have to start over if something happened to her. HA HA - you ask! Does anyone have an idea. We're with the DBG here. EVERYone has an idea: Although I'm not ready to, I did asked around to see what it involved, but mainly you need to find someone who does appraisal's for older (antique) cars, but mostly, someone who knows the value for older VW`S. (Bring along you prices for parts you've invested in), then find an Insurance company for antique cars. In most states, you can get antique plates (mostly meant for driving back and forth to shows and such. Check you states rules. Hope this helps. I just finished restoring my 79 Riviera and ended up pouring way more money into it than I should have. I was able to get insurance through a company that specializes in insuring unusual vehicles. I filled out a form that told them what I had into the Riviera and then we agreed to an insured value of $24,000. They billed me $414 for the year. Since your VW is restored nicely, you may want to insure with a good "Collector car" insurance company that specializes in old, collectible vehicles. Deal with companies that offer "agreed value" types of policies. You and the insurance company agree in advance on a fair replacement value for the vehicle that you are happy with. If there is a loss, they cut you a check for the agreed amount. You usually have to agree to and comply with certain conditions of use and storage (the vehicle has to be "collectible", at least a certain number of years old; some limit to your driven mileage per year (usually 1000 to 2000 miles a year - Grundy has no yearly mileage limit!); no daily (to work, store) driving allowed - you HAVE to own a daily driver for those purposes; locked, secure, inside storage; decent to very nice current condition of the vehicle: etc, etc.) Since you're a new customer, some companies will probably ask for several good photos of the vehicle and possibly an value appraisal. They won't insure someone's old daily driver dented, primered, rusty piece of shit. If you ask for an unusually high valuation, they will usually ask you to substantiate that valuation. If you suffer a loss with a normal, mainstream, ordinary insurance company, no matter what you "think" your vehicle is worth, those insurance companies are gonna hammer you down through "depreciation" and it will be a battle for you to get a fair settlement out of them. Just ask Kürt & Jackie on this list about their recent experience! I have most of my collectible VW fleet insured with Grundy Worldwide Insurance. Other companies are J.C. Taylor, American Collectors, etc. I pay once a year for the next year, and the premium is usually much lower than regular insurance companies because they know they are dealing with car enthusiasts who are usually fanatical about the care and safe driving/storage of their collectible vehicles. Collectors rarely suffer a loss so the risks for the collectible insurance company, and therefore the premiums to you, are usually much lower. I had set up insurance through Haggerty, a car collector insurance company, but when they found out I had a stove, furnace and propane tank on board they killed the deal. I guess it’s ok to keep 15 gallons of highly explosive gasoline on board, but not propane. Anyway, for those of you contemplating this type of insurance, best to keep mum about the stove and other similar items.
I understand. I had an insurance company refuse me
for the same thing, but they won't pay out if you don't tell them. The
only thing worse than loosing your VW if finding out that you've been paying
for insurance for nothing.
I called them up once and they didn't want to bother with insuring the bus because I had another bus that was a daily driver (the 71) and also because the bus was a camper. It was a split without a stove, sink, or any of that...but it was still a camper and they didn't want to touch it. Haggerty that is... I have contacted Haggerty, J.C. Taylor, Condon and Skelly, and a few other "specialty insurance" companies..............They can all kiss my rosy red ass! They wouldn't insure because it was a camper, they wouldn't insure because I put on more than 800 miles per year, they wouldn't insure because I wanted comp. only in the winter. etc. etc. etc. I called up my insurance guy, who also had a few VW's of his own at the
time. He said that the insurance company he uses to insure his own collector
cars would take care of me. Turns out, they have agreed value,
the vehicle does not depreciate, it appreciates!, (I can up the insurance by
providing updated appraisals), unlimited mileage, Comp. only in the winter
months, Discount for multiple vehicles, AND...... it's a lot cheaper than the so
called "specialty I have the bus insured through Rural. We have on collectors plates and pay $27/6-mo for Comp. Then, when we want to take the bus on the road, we call up our Insurance Agent and let him know. He writes it on a post-it note and puts it by the phone. When we get back we call him to let him know everything's fine and he throws the post-it note into the garbage can. If when we called him it was to report everything was not okay, we would get charged for full coverage and have a $250 ded. That deal would cost us the 6-mo payment which is ~$325, but it's a good deal overall - playing the odds that nothing goes wrong. So far so good - knock on wood. It's very possible that what I described is an advantage of doing business for a long time in a small town, but he knows about the furnace etc. and is just fine with it. At first he had it listed as a van and we didn't like that, so now it's listed as a Volk Bus. Nice deal, huh? |
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