warning to Priviledge insurance customers

[Yellow Dave]

I have been with Priviledge now for approx 5 years on the 182 since I was 23 and never paid more than £650 so was always happy.

Changed my exhaust and notified them and stumped up £30 something which I accepted. Just spoken to them regarding my renewal in a few weeks and it's rocketed up over £300. Their reason for this is the exhaust, take the exhaust off the policy and it drops back down to normal. I explained the aftermarket exhaust is half the price of the OE Renault but no help. Even offered a RR result to prove it will not give a power gain and they're still not interested. Apparantly if there was a performance increase they would decline to offer insurance.

I'm now sitting on the phone getting quotes else where and I'm bored with it already. I always thought they were fairly helpful before this. Won't ever be recommending them again

 

[Dan519]

if they dont deal with policies for modified cars , then their price structure wont be setup to cater for what you want. Specialist modified insurers have schemes that they design for mods, so dont be too shocked

 

[keirravn]

yep this is pretty normal stuff mate, i just had an odd one where i called my insurance to tell them id put standard insurance back on (expecting the price to drop) and they told me they cant insure an unmodified car lol! luckily though im on non standard alloys

get yourself onto tiger.co.uk for some quotes, screw that phoning around balls

 

[ND04]

Try sky insurance there in the traders section im through them got a good deal

 

[Steven103]

Bell/Admiral/Elephant always seem the cheapest and appear to cater for small mods (suspension/wheels/spoiler increased my premium by between 5 and 10%) but their policy wording is very very dodgy (none of their call center staff really knew what to do either in my case) so have a good think whether it's worth the hassle.




You are obliged to tell them of anything non standard. This makes your premium go up say £50. However your exhaust is not covered. You've just paid £50 for the priviledge of keeping them informed. You have to then take out a sort of sister-policy (titled "modifications cover") costing god-knows-what if you actually want them to replace a rear-ended Yozza with a new Yozza as opposed to putting a standard exhaust back on.

And then there are "optional extras." What a nightmare. You have to declare your optional extras (cup packs etc). My premium went up £100 (lower/sports suspension, different alloys, bigger spoiler). However there is no specific policy wording r.e. replacing/repairing optional extras so optional extras come under the same rules as modifications. I.e. you've paid to notify, but they are not covered. They therefore wanted to repair my cup packed 182 using the standard silver wheels on one side and anthracite on the other, and of course lower cup suspension on one side. Regardless of this being morally wrong, expensive (I didn't need new shocks until they wanted to replace the damaged cup pack hub with a non cup pack hub) and potentially dangerous (different suspension geometry on each side? no thanks!) no-one could do anything besides be sympathetic as it was "company policy." Fortunately, and eventually, a supervisor's supervisor agreed this was dumb and agreed to replace optional extras with optional extras. Next problem is that they catagorically refuse to believe that the cup packs are factory fitted. They simply insisted that Renault did not offer any such options and that I must have bought fitted it all myself, even though it was recorded on their system as "optional - factory fitted" since day 1 of my policy. Eventually after showing them page 26 (182 optional extras) of the 2005 Clio brochure and the original invoice detailing seperate amounts for the car, cup suspension pack & spoiler pack they sent me a short letter of apology and agreed to cover my optional extras.

What I'm getting at: Be prepared to fight.

Who knows, maybe they've updated their policy document. Maybe if I'd spoken to a different bunch of 5 people they'd have been through this before and it wouldn't have been a problem. Everyone was sympathetic and agreed it was ridiculous that, should my Dad's TT with 5k of optional extras go up in flames, they'd only pay out for the base model or that if average-joe's Focus had a damaged air-con (optional extra) pump as a result of a crash the policy document implies that it should either be left un-repaired or be replaced with the standard poverty-spec air blower thing.

/long rant is long

I bet there will be about 29 replies in the time it's taken me to write this :/

 

[Yellow Dave]

I know what your saying Danny, but originally they were OK about it when it was originally declared.

I received a letter from them this week saying they were changing the company they are underwritten by, originally direct line. seeing this promted me to call them as I will be away come renewal date and it's a good job I did.

 

[Yellow Dave]

Just had a quick call with Adrian flux and they've matched the non modified quote of Privilege with the car modified (minor performance increases accepted ) and no restriction on mileage as I use my car for work.

quick call, very helpful and all sorted, should have changed sooner lol

 

[Marky_]

Standard. The cheapest are usually not modifier friendly.

 

[jicholasnackson]

Bell were the cheapest for me until I wanted to "declare" a RARB, and they wanted 170 quid (thats more than it cost btw). I said haha, ok I am cancelling my policy and I switched that day to Brentacre who are cheaper with all my mods than my standard policy was with Bell.

 

[rob_sri]

when someone crashed into my modified corsa i actually gained mods.. they thought my cupra splitter was a Irmscher lower splitter.. that saved me about £400

 

[skyinsurance]

I received a letter from them this week saying they were changing the company they are underwritten by

That's the issue there then. Old underwriter ok for mods, new underwriter not.

 

[Yellow Dave]

That's the issue there then. Old underwriter ok for mods, new underwriter not.

That's what I thought might be the case, but pretty poor show to existing customers considering I've been with them 5 years.

 

[yeecup]

priviledge wont insure modified cars, wont touch them.