Does your car only have standard equipment?

wazza

Overheard someone saying they are having difficulty with the insurance company paying out for his written off car. Unknown to him when he bought it second hand it has a sat nav which was an optional extra.

Naturally when you buy a brand new car you would know what extra is fitted and inform the insurance company.

When buying a second hand car that is not easy. It is easy to spot if it has leather seats/in-car DVD player etc on a car which is middle of the range spec.

Also does not help with the manufactor changing specs all the time.

Reason for the above is that I am considering buying a used MPV. Probably a 1.8 petrol zafira because there are plenty on the marked thanks to the lease/motability scheme etc so price will be cheap compared to s-max/galaxy which i prefer. From what I have been told that if you are disabled and leased a ford/vauxhall car through the motability scheme it will be supplied with front and rear parking sensors. So this will be fitted for motability customers. When buying a used motability car how will i know if the parking sensors are standard or extra?

Rambosmum

I'm having this issue too. I have a 2002 golf. It has a sunroof, apparently an optional extra, as well as the previous owner replacing the stereo. So that's technically 2 modifications which I have to declare. I have no idea how many of the other things are optional extras/ modifications. It is resulting in higher premiums too.

b33r

I was under the impression that if the optional extras were selected from new then you could safely say on the insurance the car was manufactures spec and not declare anything extra.

There's a number of manufacturer options on mine whoever bought it from new must have added but I've never said anything about them on my insurance.

Willing to be proved wrong tho and will watch for other answers!

Johno100

b33r wrote: »

I was under the impression that if the optional extras were selected from new then you could safely say on the insurance the car was manufactures spec and not declare anything extra.

There's a number of manufacturer options on mine whoever bought it from new must have added but I've never said anything about them on my insurance.

Willing to be proved wrong tho and will watch for other answers!

That's my view as well, if it rolled off the production line with it on then it isn't a modification.

I don't know if Vauxhall/GM have a similar thing but with Ford you check exactly what options your car had.

https://www.etis.ford.com/home.do

So as this information is freely available and you give your insurer your registration number, then it should be up to them to bring up any problems they have with the spec of the car that they have agreed to insure.

enfield_freddy

yes the wording is not extras , it is factory fitted options as regards insurance ,


when selling the car they are factory fitted extras ,,,

InsideInsurance

b33r wrote: »

I was under the impression that if the optional extras were selected from new then you could safely say on the insurance the car was manufactures spec and not declare anything extra.

There's a number of manufacturer options on mine whoever bought it from new must have added but I've never said anything about them on my insurance.

Willing to be proved wrong tho and will watch for other answers!

As per the thread last week on the same topic, it varies.

The majority of insurers are only interested in things added post manufacture/ initial registration but others, most notably Admiral Group, want all optional extras declared too.

That said, as long as there isnt a notable change in performance or desirability to be stolen then mods dont tend to add much, if anything to premiums. My car has a mass of mods which all but one was done as optional extras. Only two which have caused any premium adjustments have been the engine remapping and lowering the suspension.

Personally it was a bit frustrating as 2 months after I got my car they changed the spec such that the "sports pack" was now standard and so lowered suspension wouldnt have to be declared to the likes of Admiral. I did do a dummy quote and they hadnt adjusted the price on the new car to represent the lower suspension so was just a bit of bad timing for me (though they stopped the colour of seats the Mrs wanted when they did the change so as always a case of swings and roundabouts)

Inner_Zone

Johno100 wrote: »

That's my view as well, if it rolled off the production line with it on then it isn't a modification.

I don't know if Vauxhall/GM have a similar thing but with Ford you check exactly what options your car had.

https://www.etis.ford.com/home.do

So as this information is freely available and you give your insurer your registration number, then it should be up to them to bring up any problems they have with the spec of the car that they have agreed to insure.

GM version here:

http://ecat24.com/opel/catalog/models/1/

jase1

Generally the insurers aren't bothered about ICE, at least in my experience.

As long as the vehicle is scrapped with some sort of stereo installed they don't care. So not declaring a third-party (or even standard fit) Sat-Nav is not going to cause problems.

I've never owned a car where I've kept the original stereo/nav. They're always rubbish.

b33r

InsideInsurance wrote: »

As per the thread last week on the same topic, it varies.

The majority of insurers are only interested in things added post manufacture/ initial registration but others, most notably Admiral Group, want all optional extras declared too.

Without doing a fair amount of research how can one tell if things on the car are options, and if they were added post registration and if it was done by the manufacturer or not?

Seems like a system designed to punish the insured party when they get something wrong.

InsideInsurance

b33r wrote: »

Without doing a fair amount of research how can one tell if things on the car are options, and if they were added post registration and if it was done by the manufacturer or not?

Seems like a system designed to punish the insured party when they get something wrong.

If it was pre or post prod is possibly impossible to know unless the manufacturer can tell you or you have the original purchase invoice. Arguably that makes Admirals approach of having to tell the insurer of every change slightly easier.

Generally speaking insurers will insurer mods and its fairly rare for it to be considered intentional fraud, I can recall of only 3 cases, and so if it is pointed out as an accidental non-declaration and the insurer would have covered the vehicle had the declaration been made then the policy is adjusted, any additional premium paid and the claim then settled.

oscarward

My insurer, direct line, want to know about factory fit options, but I presume only as that increases the value. If the car is written off you can hardly claim for options that increase the value if you don't declare them. I'm not aware it has increased my premium significantly.