Agreed value auto insurance?

Hey all,

Has anyone here sought out or dealt with getting an "agreed value" insurance policy? One where you agree with the insurance company what you're insuring for and for how much and it stays a fixed value for the term of the policy?

I'd been hearing some horror stories, coupled with my own experience of having someone hit and total my Charger last year, and it's just churning in my head how f'd the typical insurance policy is, and that most of us with any money put in the car will not be made whole should it be destroyed. Or even if you don't have any money put in the car, you won't be made whole.

A little searching and I found one (non-major label) insurance company that does it but the vehicle has to be a rare or antique or something special, and I don't consider any of my vehicles in that class. There just has to be a better way of insuring vehicles than paying high premiums to not get a fair (for all parties) price should it get totaled out.

 

I do this for a custom truck I have, but they wont do my daily drivers under that. Like you said they have to fall into certain categories. If you mod vehicles its pretty hard to be made whole and get money back should the worst occur. Its a risk, we as enthusiasts take because we enjoy modifying our vehicles.

Insurance is a riot, I despise the practices. seems customer loyalty isn't a factor and how they come up with there rates. All they do is spread around there loss, lots of flooding from hurricanes to the south of me and my insurance goes up to cover it. Insurance is just a fact of life we all have to life no matter if we like it or not.

 

You still have to be aware of the fine print of agreed value policies. Many of them are agreed value or cost to repair, whichever is less. So those policies only pay you the agreed value if the cost to repair exceeds the amount agreed to. This might be better than the normal policy where the argument is the “value” of the vehicle (especially if it is heavily modded). However, you still get into the fight of whether it’s reparable.

As stated, they usually only write them for collectors type cars and many policies have mileage restrictions.

 

I get it's a fact of life, but as a product with a stated purpose of "making you whole" I can't see how current insurance in the US is anything less than a fraud.

Any industry where they cannot define what you're buying up front is a fraud. And they *could* fix this by letting you state or agree up front what the value of something is and pricing the policy accordingly, but then they can't f you on the back end by devaluing the insured item, playing hardball and drawing it out until you have to cave.

Could you imagine if life insurance was run this way? Getting $1MM term policy, paying premiums based on $1MM, dying, then having the insurance company come back to your family and say "Yeaah, he wasn't really worth $1MM. We found a guy, single, still living in his mother's basement in the slums of Austin and we could get him to come agree to be a husband and father for $1,000 and a bag of Chuck E Cheese tokens. So we're assessing you're loved ones life at $1040. Oh, but I'm seeing here your husband was a bit more active than this comparable guy, so we're going to deduct for the 'higher mileage'"...

Sigh, rant over.

 

Haggerty does this, but at the time I looked into it for my highly-customized motorcycle, they weren’t insuring anything newer than 1984. This was a number of years ago, situation may have changed. I get what you’re looking to do, and it makes sense.