Insurance question for owners of S/C cars....

If you have added a Supercharger to your car, do you tell your insurance company? If you don't, & your car is stolen, won't you be out the money? Just curious as I am entertainig the idea of a S/C. TIA, - Cam

depends on the state you are in and the contract your insurance company has with your state. read your policy thoroughly and don't be afraid to ask your agent. a super charger means nothing to an insurance company if you are worried that they will care about a performance enhancement. If you are looking at a car 25 years or older i would look to insure it through a classic car insurance company like hagerty. their adjusters deal with this type of thing all the time and understand it.

If you don't and your S/C causes a loss you will also be out any damages. I support full disclosure.

typically when you open a policy, you have to state if there are any modifications made to the car which raise its value. SO technically, if you added a SC you need to tell them, if you consider the value of the car to go up as a result. Realistically, the value probably goes down when you add a blower, in terms of resale, unless you find the "right" buyer that is. When I added the SC to my BMW, I didn't tell my insurance agent, mostly because I knew the value of the car went down when I did it.

pecivil...."technically" you are wrong. Maybe the resale value goes down in your opinion, but this is something which I don't believe. You have a smaller pool of potential buyers but it still not going to LOWER the resale. And as for the insurance, if you are rear-ended and the blower is destroyed, guess what? you will NOT get that covered if you did NOT disclose it.

As far as having your blower destroyed when being rear ended and it is the other guys fault, you will receive reimbursement for the cost to repair the blower. Just like if you had something in your trunk that was broken by the collision or the collision caused your coffee to spill into the radio or you ruined a suit because it spilled on it.

As far as having your blower destroyed when being rear ended and it is the other guys fault, you will receive reimbursement for the cost to repair the blower. Just like if you had something in your trunk that was broken by the collision or the collision caused your coffee to spill into the radio or you ruined a suit because it spilled on it.

good thing the engine is in the back!

Better hope then you don't have a snap oversteer one-car incident and smasht the rear end into a solid immovable object!

Like THAT could happen in a 996.................... ....it was sarcasm, OK!

This is why keeping receipts for work done to your car is very important. It does help when you are faced with dealing with insurance companies.

Just a word of caution, I know of at least one person dropped from State Farm for making modifications to his car. He asked if they would cover modifications, they said they would be happy to if he supplied receipts and a list of modifications. He provided both and received notice that they were terminating his policy due to the car be modified for racing purposes....these were just bolt-ons and wheels...I'm sure a SC would be the same if not worse... Shawn

in theory, ins. company could deny your coverage(if you are at fault) if you have any mod. and didn't tell them, i heard some guys in the souped-up honda got screwed like this. they may also drop your policy because the mod you did to your car.

Just so happens I use State Farm, hmmm......... Keep the comments coming guys, thanks.

Once you have established yourself as a long term State Farm customer (12 years) they cannot stop your coverage on auto's as long as you continue making premium payments. Rates may rise, but as long as payment is made, they cannot, by policy, deny you auto insurance. Additionally, some of us have chosen to establish a value of the vehicles and have them insured for that value. If you want your car to be insured for $100,000 when it is only worth $50,000, you can do that with quite a few insurance companies. As I mentioned above, in cases where another driver is at fault, they are liable to replace or repair any and all items damaged in the accident, whether it is part of the orginal car, addon or something simply sitting in the back seat.

I had a CBR1000RR that was tricked out, so I told my agent I wanted it insured for $18,000 (I called it at the time a stated value policy) & she got it ok'ed by the head office. I had her take pictures of the bike to keep on file. The bike was stolen & they tried to give me $9,500.00 for it.....I went round & round & they ended up giving me $12,750 for it. They claimed there is no such thing as a "stated value" policy & my agent claimed she did not remember anything from our previous talks about my bike. Talk about being skrewed over!!!

That is why I use Hagerty for my 81 Datsun Z. I purchased a STATED VALUE policy that is a no quesitons asked payment of the stated amount in the event of a loss. Hopefully I never need to make that claim but it is good to know that the car is covered in a stated policy rather than "blue book". FYI....I just got the blue book value on my NC tax form for this current tax year and the state reports the car's value at $800! My tax was a total of $25.

Well Dell, that is what I thought I had & I was even paying more than just the standard premium.

I disagree. In my experience, when you mod a car, especially with something as drastic as an SC, you lower the price your typpical person will pay. Why? The car is not stock. The engine has potential wear issues caused by forced induction that was not designed for originally. It will potentially cost more to work on and/or fix. You need to find a shop who will/can work on it. The $tealer probably wont want to touch it. Everybody has their own tastes for mods, and whatever mods you do to your car will potentially be to anothers dislike. People like to do their own mods. Notice I am not saying that there isnt SOMEBODY who may pay more for your mods, but it is common understanding that mods do not raise a cars value, in general. Thats why so many people who do mods keep all the original stock parts, so when they sell, they can return the car to stock (to get more money for it) and they can sell the mod parts.

you said the same thing I did just a different way by now defining that the "typical" person will percieve the car worth less. Actually, they probably wouldn't even buy it unless they were open to purchasing a SC'd car. SO the value is what that person is willing to pay but to say that the car is worth less b/c of the SC is just plain false. FYI....I don't have a SC but rather expressing an opinion, as are you.