Insurance for project/weekend cars?

Hey everyone. I've had my project/weekend cars insured with Geico for many years, but I've always wondered if I could be saving money by using a different, more "enthusiast" focused insurance company for my project/weekend cruiser cars. The biggest name that comes up when I do a search is Hagerty. I do like that they allow you to put in an agreed upon value, as Geico doesn't let me do that. They just go based off of blue book value, which as we know, isn't always accurate for enthusiast focused cars.

What insurance company do you guys use for your project/weekend cars, and how is it cost wise vs a mainstream insurance company? These cars I'm talking about get driven less than 4k miles a year in case that makes any difference.

State farm is half as much as hagerty on a 25k agreed value policy on my Skyline, around $100/yr

Patrick said:

State farm is half as much as hagerty on a 25k agreed value policy on my Skyline, around $100/yr

Wow I am getting absolutely REEMED at Geico. They are charging me $200/year for my 93 Miata, blue book value.

First off, where you live makes a HUGE difference in what you pay, so it's apples-to-oranges unless you're in the same city.

I used Grundy for Midlana and paid $220 a year in SoCal.

In reply to kb58 :

Yeah forgot about that piece. I'm considered to be in the Philly area even though I'm 30 miles from the city. Hows your experience been with Grundy coverage and price wise?

There are so many variables that come into play with car insurance, it's pointless to ask for a comparison. 

Car, miles driven, credit score, age, driving history, ZIP Code (yes even in the same city it can vary based on ZIP Code), is it parked in a garage, multi-vehicle discount, multi-line discount (ie home and cars with the same company), etc. 

The only thing you can do is shop around for YOU, for your specific use case. Yes, you'll spend some time on the phone or internet with big companies and independent brokers, you'll just have to decide if that's worth it to you to save money and/or get better coverage. 

Japanspec said:

In reply to kb58 :

Yeah forgot about that piece. I'm considered to be in the Philly area even though I'm 30 miles from the city. Hows your experience been with Grundy coverage and price wise?

Never made a claim so I don't know if they'd "be there" when needed.

Speaking of Grundy, I was surprised that their quote for a "weekend" 2015 Jag Type R was within 5% of AAA's quote (granted we have other stuff insured through them, but still).

Regarding weekend cars, AAA was definitely a no-go back when I asked them about insuring Kimini (a tube-frame "Mini'). They kept saying said "it has a roll bar so you must race it." I said, "no, it's tube frame, that's the chassis." They didn't buy it. Went with Grundy for that one as well, and again, never made a claim.

Thanks guys. Has anyone put in claims with Grundy, Hagerty, etc? I guess thats a better question to ask about how they handled the claim because Geico is pretty good about claims (so far).

I've had Hagerty insurance on something or the other pretty much continuously since the 1990s. I really like them and they are well known in the car hobby as opening the checkbook quickly when a claim arises. 

I just insured my Corvette through them two weeks ago. 10k value. $251 per year.

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

I've had Hagerty insurance on something or the other pretty much continuously since the 1990s. I really like them and they are well known in the car hobby as opening the checkbook quickly when a claim arises. 

I just insured my Corvette through them two weeks ago. 10k value. $251 per year.

Awesome thanks! Sounds like they have treated you well. Anyone else have experience with Hagerty? My search always brings them up as a big player.

z31maniac said:

There are so many variables that come into play with car insurance, it's pointless to ask for a comparison. 

This.  Any price comparison with others you try to make is utterly irrelevant.  

With respect to claims service, the specialty carriers may be a bit easier with claims because they deal with collector, classic, unique cars all day.  Unless GEICO, etc...has a dedicated team for that book of business (possible they do), you may not get the same experience...or at least the depth of understanding.

The lizard doesn't insure collector cars on any special policy. It's just plain old car insurance.

I've been on/off researching collector insurance because the idiots at State Farm won't insure my '93 Lightning for what it's worth. They say because it has over 150,000 miles on it it's only worth $5500.  I could sell it today for $12,000 and people would fight over it. Anyway, none of the collector brands seem to be much better or worse than the others. You'll find complaints online about all of them, but it's insurance. Everyone hates insurance companies just like they hate car salespeople. My only thing with Hagerty is they just became a public company in the last couple of years. They are now beholden to shareholders vs themselves, which may drive how they do business in the future.

My online quote experiments with Grundy and Hagerty had them within $12 of each other. It was basically the same as I pay with Snake Farm for my collector cars but with much higher valuations.

I was going to throw "Farm use" plates on the RX7 so I could drive it around to the store or farm for milk but the state changed the law so farm use plates now come from the DMV and you have to have liability insurance.  Also means you have to register the car and pay property taxes on it.

I own Eclectic Motorworks and we do some insurance work every year on collector cars. I'll say that Hagerty and Auto Owners are the absolute best to deal with. We've never worked with Grundy, but probably would. We generally won't work with any other company because they just don't get limited use collector cars and they're just too hard to deal with.  

I've been a huge fan of Hagerty for years and have all my personal cars with them. Like ddavidv, I'm a bit worried about the change to a public company. 

One other note: We have a lot of customers with lower-end cars that are often insured for 10K or less (MGBs, Spitfires, etc.). The problem is, even a fender bender can be $4-6K to repair these days and it will total a lot of these cars. We encourage our customers to increase their coverage to 12-15K if their carrier will do it so that they can avoid totaling the car. It usually costs less than $100/year (in Michigan) and has saved a few people from some hassles. I'm not a fan of overvaluing cars, but it's usually better than dealing with a total loss, buyback, etc..  

ddavidv said:

The lizard doesn't insure collector cars on any special policy. It's just plain old car insurance.

I've been on/off researching collector insurance because the idiots at State Farm won't insure my '93 Lightning for what it's worth. They say because it has over 150,000 miles on it it's only worth $5500.  I could sell it today for $12,000 and people would fight over it. Anyway, none of the collector brands seem to be much better or worse than the others. You'll find complaints online about all of them, but it's insurance. Everyone hates insurance companies just like they hate car salespeople. My only thing with Hagerty is they just became a public company in the last couple of years. They are now beholden to shareholders vs themselves, which may drive how they do business in the future.

My online quote experiments with Grundy and Hagerty had them within $12 of each other. It was basically the same as I pay with Snake Farm for my collector cars but with much higher valuations.

After 30 years, I just left Snake Farm a few months ago.  They started hassling me about changing cars fairly often and were insisting that I was a car dealer.  No matter what I told them, they still didn't like it.  My agent got snarky with me when I explained to him that I'm an enthusiast and like having different cars.  I looked at Hagerty and Grundy.  I found Grundy far easier to work with and the policy to be less restrictive.  I was very clear with them that I like to change cars a lot.  They thought it was great and said they have lots of customers like that.  They now insure my collector cars as well as my personal cars.  Through their MVP program, they also insure my home.  They have a family atmosphere for sure...heck, I even struck up a casual conversation with one of the Grundy family.  The only claim I've had so far is for a rock hitting the windshield of my BMW.  They use another company to underwrite their policy, but the claim experience was flawless.

Thanks guys! Sounds like Hagerty customers are pretty loyal, must be a good sign. Grundy sounds pretty popular too. Going to have to get quotes from both and see what it comes out to.

All I can say about Hagerty is that when you're setting it up they automatically add the club membership to the costs. You have to manually remove the membership before you hit the pay button. It's like 75 bucks or something for a magazine subscription and towing insurance. No thanks. 

Just to bring this back as I'm now seriously looking into changing insurance on my two Miatas to something more "collector" focused, has anyone used American Collectors? I did an online quote for them and it was pretty dang good. Just want to see if anyone has experience using them.

Don't forget NCM Insurance.  I'm considering a 'Vette and found out about them while looking at the National Corvette Museum website.  For the 2010 they quoted $397/yr.

I like Hagerty and used them in the past.

My regular car insurance and umbrella liability insurance are with USAA. I wanted to insure my limited use Miata for Agreed Value. No problem for Hagerty.

BUT my USAA umbrella would not cover me, and that is no good.

Ended up with American Collectors, via USAA. Agreed Value insurance and close or slightly cheaper than Hagerty. No claims, so not sure how they are.

If you have an umbrella, make sure it covers all your cars!

In reply to Japanspec :

I have American Collectors.  Their policies are actually underwritten by American Family insurance.

I used them to insure my 330ci ZHP, my 2008 Mustang GT and my 1966 F100.  They are incredibly reasonable on the premiums.  Better still, every time I call them I'm almost immediately connected to someone in the U.S. who speaks clear English and is friendly and helpful.

I have agreed value on the GT and my F100 (BMW is gone) and they were reasonable for the valuation on both vehicles.

Thankfully I've not had a claim with them so far, but my research prior to choosing them indicated they would be fair and quick should I need to be assisted.

i have safeco for my main insurance and they offer stated value and limited use.  They require that you provide pictures and justification for why the car's stated insurance is greater than bluebook which was easy enough to do.  They also require that the car be garage kept and your pictures need to show that its stored in the garage.  In terms of limited use during the winter they allow me to back down to comprehensive during the winter months but the savings is only around $100 per car per year.  

Thank your lucky stars you're not paying for car insurance in Ontario, only comprehensive policies are legal here, ~$730US/yr for the family beater van and about twice that much for the Toyobaru

And it used to be worse, I ragequit a policy that cost 20% more last winter. Saved money by moving to the only insurance company that takes foreign driving experience into consideration. I did call Hagerty for a quote at that time, but they said that they wouldn't cover any cars used in any sort of competition, although I heard around mid-2022 that they would be changing that. However Hagerty is a premium option, they're the best but certainly not the cheapest.

Great, thanks guys! I'll consider American Collectors, their price is quite attractive. Hadn't heard of NCM, do they cover non-Corvette's too?