GUEST SPEAKERS
Emma Airey and Andy Prill chat restomods.
You may have decided to realise your dream of beginning an ambitious restomod project, but have you considered the implications of changing the specification of your car as far as ongoing insurance cover is concerned? From assistance during the build to help when hitting the road, there are key considerations you need to be aware of...
How many times have you heard people say they’ve been invited to buy their car back from their insurer after it has been considered a financial write-off? This practice, commonly referred to as ‘buy-back’, sounds great, but the reality of the situation is that most insurers will offer you a settlement figure significantly lower than your car’s actual value — typically, the insurer will deduct forty percent. To put this into perspective, if you’ve bought and modified a classic Porsche, and if the resulting car is worth £100,000, you’d be lucky to see a return of £60,000. To my mind, this is one of the scandals of the modern motoring insurance industry, but it’s one people gladly accept, primarily because they don’t fully understand what ‘buy-back’ actually means (read the smallprint, people!), and because, regrettably, they don’t spend time to find out until they need to make a claim. In other words, they fall foul of typical ‘buy-back’ by discovering what their insurance policy really covers when it’s too late to raise objection. Moreover, claimants don’t realise there is a far more enthusiast-friendly alternative to this practice, as demonstrated by the team at RH Specialist Insurance.
Providing your car is more than twenty years old, and as long as it is deemed repairable within DVLA guidelines, we will give you your settlement fee, but we will also hand the car (often referred to as ‘cherished salvage’) back to you free of charge. We’ll even offer to reinsure it! Breakdown recovery is another strong feature of an RH Specialist Insurance policy, and you don’t necessarily need to have suffered a breakdown away from home to qualify for recovery — we include a true home start service, or we pop your car onto a flatbed and take it to a repair shop of your choice at a time convenient to you.
When it comes to planning and executing a Porsche restomod project, it’s worth having a word with your insurer in advance of working taking place, just to make sure your policy will provide adequate cover when the work is complete. Generally speaking, as long as performance upgrades are balanced with improvements to safety equipment, RH Specialist Insurance takes a fairly relaxed approach when it comes to providing cover for this kind of car. We will evaluate your needs and the Porsche’s intended use, working with you to ensure you can take to the road safe in the knowledge your treasured air-cooled classic is protected in the event of unfortunate accident. We can also assist you with ‘laid up’ cover while the build is taking place. Ultimately, when it comes to restomods, we take a pragmatic view, looking at the relationship of car and owner and seeking to identify where changes could be made to the policy or the vehicle’s specification to guarantee you continued happy motoring. Importantly, we encourage you to seek confirmation of the vehicle’s value — this is sound advice regardless of which company you choose for insurance — by speaking with the relevant owners club or an independent specialist who can verify the vehicle’s worth. Once again, you don’t want to be out of pocket if the worst should happen. It’s also a good idea to speak to the appropriate model registrar before you get going on the build. They’ll be able to point you in the direction of owners who can tell you about their personal experiences of the upgrades you have in mind. Whatever direction your restomod takes, I wish you every success with the project.
ONE OF THE SCANDALS OF THE MODERN MOTORING INSURANCE INDUSTRY, BUT IT’S ONE PEOPLE GLADLY ACCEPT