Car insurers view modified cars as high risk and finding affordable insurance for modified cars might be a tougher prospect than insuring your normal standard car.
Some modifications such as the addition of alloy wheels and a new performance exhaust system will increase the value of your car by only a small amount, but those alterations will also attract the attention of car thieves. As a result your insurance premiums may rise by much more than you might expect.
Other changes such as upgrading to a bigger engine or fine tuning the suspension performance to improve handling may increase your insurance premium even further due to the possible risk that you will drive at greater speeds. Even though you can expect to pay more for your car insurance if your car has been modified, you can still keep your premiums to an affordable level by not over customizing and limiting the number of additional modifications that are made to your car.
When you’re shopping for quotes you will need to inform the insurers of all alterations made that increase the value of your ‘modded car’ and in particular all modifications that are performance enhancing, otherwise you may risk invalidating your car insurance policy.
Off course it is also essential to shop around and get as many quotes as you can. Depending on the scale of modifications made some insurers may simply refuse to even give you a quote, especially the larger companies. You may have to look for a specialist insurer who specialize in high performance vehicles and modified cars, so be prepared to spend a few hours researching online. After all what’s 3 to 4 hours of your time when you can make savings running into several hundreds of pounds.
For vehicles that are more difficult to insure (especially those with increased performance) you could ask for advice from people who already drive modded cars. Custom car shows is one place to find a group of like minded people, you could even ask questions online at motoring forums. Its also a good idea to get several quotes beforehand, before you even begin making any modifications to your car. The last thing you want to avoid is any big surprise in the increased cost of your insurance policy
Here are six steps you can take to reduce your premiums. (1) Avoid any extreme modifications such as nitrous oxide systems, these kits are guaranteed to ramp up the cost of your car insurance premiums. (2) Park your car off road and preferably in a garage, ‘out of sight’ is very much ‘out of mind’ and lessens the risk of your car being stolen. (3) Fitting a car immobilizer system is another option which you should consider, this will prevent the engine from running (even if hot-wired) unless the correct key is used.
(4) Driving safely to avoid picking up points against your licence and build up your no-claims discount. (5) Taking an advanced driving course and raising your voluntary excess are other steps you can take and (6) Agree to a mileage limit – If you don’t drive your modified car too often you can reduce your premiums by agreeing to a mileage limit.