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MG MGF Technical - insurance

hey guys,
im pretty much a novice with the mgf at the minute. but i am considering uprating the parts on my mgf a little. how do u guys get around the insurance, does it go up dramatically and do u inform them off every new mod u put on?
cheers, rob
R Turpin

Well, I have had a TF conversion, air induction, CAT bypass, roll hoops.. and so far mentioned it all to 'the red phone', and hasn't cost anything extra..

Neil H

Ask your Insurance Company BEFORE you fit any Non-OEM Equipment. You may find that either you cannot afford it or need to change your Insurance.
My Annual Renewal with N-U has an addition to the Vehicle Schedule. Modifications - None.
Geoff F.
G. Farthing

yeah great huh! phoned insurance company this morning, and they wont insure me to fit a K&N 57i air filter if im below 25...arse.

the fact that im 25 half way through this policy i have with them and an advance police response driver is beside the point...still wont do it!

I hate insurance companies! should have checked before buying one! oh well looks like ill have to wait 6 months before fitting it.
R Turpin

>>yeah great huh! phoned insurance company this morning, and they wont insure me to fit a k&n 57i air filter if im below 25...arse.

Who are you with?
Neil H

>>>>advance police response driver <<<
So if you are a Policeman then you should have known the answer to your question before you posted it.
Cecil Kimber

cecil im a cop not an insurance sales man, dont know if price of insurance will increase with mods :)

Neil,

im with MG ROVER insurance. low insurance premiums, its about 500 at the moment for mine.
R Turpin

Sorry, I just thought a policeman who has duties, which involve him everyday with driving offences, would know the more about law. Especially those appertaining to things like insurances, the modifications of cars and other related issues.
Cecil Kimber

Cecil

Insurance companies liking or disliking mods has nothing to do with the law, even if you did something they did not like and you had an accident that caused third party damage they would be obliged to honour that side of the policy even if they refused to cough for the insurers own repairs - so no laws broken.

Ted
Ted Newman

Well, its a shame Rob.

I sometimes don't know if these things cost as policy, or its the way you mention it to them.

When I did my TF conversion, I rang 'the red phone' and told them.
The bloke on the other end of the phone seemed reluctant.., but I explained it was standard MG parts being replaced.. and he's happy.

As I said.. never had a cost. Maybe you should phone for a quote?

My experience has been great. As long as you tell them it seems fine. Maybe they put my premium up each year (I am paying more than 500, I have 8years NCB and I'm unfortunately older than you..).
But at least I don't realise it!



Neil H

HANG ON!!!!!!..............

You get stopped by the side of the road, and given a fixed penalty notice by a Copper named R TURPIN...................

:o)
Mark.L

akin to highway robbery....
Ted Newman

I bit rich a Policeman complaining about insurance companies making live a misery for the driving public! Very mild in comparison to their thieving speed camera franchise that they inflict on the rest of us!

Back to the topic of insurance, I met one of this year’s 2 Sheriffs for the City. This is an honorary position that is held for a year. It comes with lots of perks that include a flat in the Old Bailey together with a Rolls Royce and Driver. Another of the perks is secure parking for his personal car within the walls of the Old Bailey. Being the upright citizen that he is, he informed his Motor Insurance company that his car would be moving from the drive by his house in Sidcut to behind the locked and armoured doors of the Old Bailey complete with armed Police. The muppet asked for the post code of his new address which he supplied. Muppet said that is a high risk area for car crime and we will have to increase your premium!
Patrick Beet

Patrick.
My son had similar with his insurance on his MGZR.
While at home his car is parked in the street, we live halfway between Liverpool and Manchester!.
When he is away his car is kept in a locked covered compound with 24hr armed guards, at his base in Bordan, Hampshire!.
Guess where it was cheaper to insure his car..........Yep at home , because insurance say in the event of a war his base will be bombed first!!!!.
Mark.L

Patrick,

typical all coppers being branded with the same old stick. Unfortunatly the police never gain from any profits made by speed camera's they get filtered off to the government and we dont get a sniff, wish they did then maybe we would get paid a reasonable wage and not the pitance we get for the amount of brown sticky stuff we have got to deal with..

as for the insurance i will keep looking around for a new insurer if not will just wait 6months and fit it. thanks for all the useful comments, and not so much for the useless ones... :)

regards,

Rob.
R Turpin

Rob

Not quite true, the police are now allowed to keep a percentage of the revenue for further law enforcement work.

Note that I say law enforcement, as in my opinion Gatsos etc. do not prevent crime.

But I am sure that you as a person do not benefit from these revenue gains.

Re: postcodes I have the same problem moving from N1 with a garage to SE18 where the car is now kept in a guarded compound with at least two locked gates and full 24/7 CCTV added well over £100.00 to the premiums!

Ted
Ted Newman

>When he is away his car is kept in a locked covered compound with 24hr armed guards, at his base in Bordan, Hampshire!.<

Mike, Im in the TA and my car has been vandalised twice in a locked military compound. Once by a squadie, and the other time by peace protesters throwing rocks and paint bombs into the base. So maybe insurers have a point there :)

P66DDY
Paddy

Rob,

hate to say it, but (unless you have a few claims/speeding tickets/no NCB) £500 for an unmodded F for a 25 year old actually isn't cheap. I pay less that £350 for mine, though I do have 8 years NCB and a clean licence.

Zurich appear not to believe in mods; they've not charged for my K&N, Bilsteins or rollbars.

Worth a try justifying the K&N by telling them that the old air filter needs replacement and you'd like to fit an aftermarket unit that is cleanable rather than disposable, and that aids fuel efficiency. Unfortunately it happens to add 8bhp (assuming MPi) but this is purely a side effect, guv.

Jamie
Jamie


Mr R Turpin

I am under 25 - i have a K&N 57 induction kit, MS roll hoops, silver grill at the front and side, and uprated breaks on my '01 VVC BRG.

I am with Admiral.

My insurance is under 700 GBP.

2 yrs no claims.

DO IT!!!
Papa

Papa,
£500 to £700 makes it £200 a year just for a K&N. Too expensive for any sensible owner.
Rob,
Stay with your one Insurance Company, be patient and build up some more NCD (and sorry, also some age)and then go for it.

However a car may be secured at night, it does not change the Post Code where it will probably be parked on the High Street or outsude of the Supermarket
Geoff F.
G. Farthing


The 'base' insurance with admiral will be lower that just under 700 GBP will it not?

I have an insurance premium of 680GBP or there abouts and this includes the other upgrades to my car.

I think that when i changed my insurance to include the 'non-standard filter' it went up by about 35 GBP.

I would suggest that admiral should be tried initially and see what the 'base' - unmodified car insurance premium would be - this can be easily done on there website.

You can then see if it is more of less than you would currently pay.

Then, you can add the 'non-standard filter' tick box and see what teh insurance premium is.

Worth a go i think.

Rgds.

JK
Papa

Seems the Red Phone, a good postcode (FK3), a good NCB (5+), and youth (48, 49 this year) keep my insurance down... £23/month. (£230 for the year). Mods...only aluminium coolant pipes from MS so far as I know. My F was 4 years old and on it 3rd owner when I bought it. Still... :)

John Dickson

why are we giving rob a hard time. in my opinion the police overall do a superb job. i would not like to deal with the probs they have for the salary they receive.
Rob, some of us do appreciate the efforts you put in.
tony

In the past I've successfully negotiated a mid term refund from an existing insurance company because they were unwilling to insure the proposed modifications. Amazingly I then found a cheaper insurance company than the original.

<<typical all coppers being branded with the same old stick>>

Unfortunately you have to blame many of your fellow colleagues. I was recently stopped by two teenage policemen and I quote, 'You haven't done anything wrong but you were out accelerating us and we had to give everything the police car had to keep up.' The police car was 1.4 Astra which must have been driven well above the speed limit to catch me down the dual carriageway. But did they pull me over at the lay-bys on the dual carriageway to give me this valuable bit of information, no, they followed and waited until we were on the dangerous single lane road with no stopping places. Priceless.
Neil Stothert

Neil,
i guess its like any job in the world really. get sh*t thrown from a great height when u make a mistake or do something wrong, and forgotten about when you do something right.
I might be wrong but i believe most forces have 1.7Dti which to give them credit do shift pretty well for what they are. technically if they decided that they were going to stop you then it automatically becomes a 'pursuit' so to speak, and are allowed to break the speed limit to stop and speak to you. And as for the dual carriageway you'll find that officers need to be 'fast road' trained and in a suitably marked vehicle with the correct lighting equipment (i.e roads policing car not a panda) to be able to stop anyone on a dual carriageway, that is why you were stopped on a single carriage way. and as you say '2 teenagers' they were more than likely not yet trained to that level. (but i guess all of that depends on the force area you were stopped in as that is just our policy but figure its going to be pretty similar.)

a new air filter £100, a new set of alloys £600, a new throttle body £130, a police officer getting some credit now thats Priceless!! and i guess for everything else there's master card! :)

Anyway thanks for your comments Tony they were much appreciated. And as this is a MGF Technical thread i dont really want to get into the in's and out's of the various british police force policies.

As for the insurance I have called the good ol' 'red phone' and looks like they'll do me a better deal when i need to renew my insurance next, thanks guys for the help.

Rob
Rob T

Papa,

took up your advice and did a base quote for my car with admiral, and the premium came out £20 lower than current ins. and when i put a non standard air filter on the list it only went up to the same as im paying now. cool! unfortunatly I have fitted MS Roll bars to the car already not realising this would effect the insurance selected that and it went up to £770 gulp.

amazing huh an air filter which adds bhp hence more speed only cost £20 to insure.

Roll bars which increase safety in the car cost an extra £220 whats the deal with that?

will have to think about this some more i think..
Rob T

Rob T

I may be wrong BUT as I understand it the MS Roll bars are not Roll bars - that is to say they have not been tested so can not be called that - so they are cosmetic additions and therefor no more than, say, seat covers.

Ted
Ted Newman

Ted I would have to agree with you that you may be wrong, the roll hoops/bars call them what you may were designed and engineered as a safety device and act as such,they are made from the same materials a safety cage or roll cage would be made from and we do sell them and call them a roll hoop they cannot be compared to the same function a set of seat covers would have. We do not sell them as a racing safety device as that requires different height and bracing requirements.They have indeed saved several people from severe injury (their claims not mine).Due to the very nature of accidents i.e. no two are the same we cannot claim that they will save a life in an accident. Just as an air bag can actually cause injury or kill the occupants yet are called a safety device.We had a guy spin a MGF with the top down, fitted with our roll hoops and glass windbreak, through a hawthorn hedge backwards at 40mph.The branches were deflected away by the glass and hoops leaving him with just minor abrasions.Without this device fitted he would have at least lost half the skin off his face and would have had to have his face reconstructed or even worse been left with brain damage.Their function is to give the occupants some protection in a accident which they do. Functional aesthetic additions are a better description and IMO should command an insurance reduction;-)
Mike
mike

Mike

I was in no way intending to 'down grade' your product purely giving Rob T a chance to argue with his insurers that your product is not a performance enhancing modification, it is a cosmetic item that given the 'wrong' circumstances can posibbly help to prevent injury so should not add to his premium.

However Mike you know, as I do, that unless your product has full safety certification you can not market it as a 'safety' product unless it has the all important Kite mark (or what ever the EU now insists on).

The comparison to seat covers was again an anti-insurance loading piece of amunition.

And for those that do not know me let me assure you that I am far from being anti Mike Satur products, after all The Green Squirrel (my 1996 MGF MPi) has probaly more Satur Ware than most MGFs AND has had it for over eight years - keep up the good work Mike.

Ted
Ted Newman

Rob T,

I have Mike's Mk1 Hoops fitted to my F, but as far as my last insurance company were concerned they were a wind-stop ......
Neil Sutton

Just a quick mention, i'm 22 (23 in May) and have 4 years NCB and my premium is £450 with Tesco's Car Insurance... give them a whirl... (I have increased my excess to £1000 for the lower premium... I'd rather pay a grand IF i have an accident than guarenteed every year to line the pockets of the Fat Cat insurers)
greg

cheers,

new insurance company now...admiral giving me 12month fully comp, 2 yrs ncb, one SP30 conviction, 24yrs old, 'Interior modification' aka MS Boxer Hoops and windstop (they were happy that it wasnt an EU authorised safety device and the main job was to stop the wind getting too the cockpit), and K&N air filter, and £150 excess for £10 less than i was getting before. £514! happy with that. thanks everyone for your advice. Next stop see how much for a MS SSK iV gear change kit...this is a downward spiral i can see it coming already! But hey thats why we all bought an MGF Right!!

Bye,

Rob.
Rob T

Cool - glad we could help!
Papa

This thread was discussed between 11/01/2005 and 24/01/2005

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