General TR Insurance for our LBC

[DavidApp]

Thank you for your input on this subject.
This thread has been very educational for me. I did not realize that there were insurance companies that specialized in classic cars. I have checked on the Hagerty site and got an estimate.

David

 

[NutmegCT]

Insurance on our cars is a *big* issue for many of us. Do Hagerty, Taylor, etc. advertise on BCF? BCF is certainly spreading the word!

hint hint

 

[Crankshaft]

I always think of this caution. If you have a personal umbrella policy (which probably most of us should) make sure your umbrella company accepts the specialty auto policy as support. Also read your policy. It's not very interesting but might enlighten you.

 

[HealeyRick]

Also read your policy. It's not very interesting but might enlighten you.

 

[Kleykamp]

Feel free to point out any specific part that you feel is inaccurate. Also please explain what state considers an unwritten contract to supercede a written one.

Randall, If this must go on: I have deferred to you many times on advise on the car and repairs, and you have bailed me out on some mechanical problems in the past, but unless your Harvard law degree trumps my years of experience with insurance, I'm going to have to push this point through. My issue with posting insurance advise on a forum is that the laws and policies vary from state to state, which means that what is perceived as good advise by one may not be good advise for the other. It is far too complex for "across the board" statements. Although your comments in your post are largely accurate, two points need to be clarified.
1) In response to your latest post: The answer is ANY state. The " agency and principal" relationship between the sales agent and the insurance company, means that the agent is representing or acting on behalf and at the direction of the company, and anything he says IS the words of the company. So, If he makes an error and tells you something is covered...IT IS. This is based on a legal principal called "reliance" which means that you relied on the word of the agent in order to agree to the written contract. This is not to say that the burden of proof is not on you to prove that the agent misinformed you if he/she does not fess up to their error. This is why agents and lawyers carry errors and omission insurance...so it does not get into their own pocket if they make a mistake.
2) Your first post makes reference to "stated value" and "agreed value". I'm sure since you have been though it with a claim, that is a accurate comparison for your state. However, both of those terms are terms typically used in insurance and can have totally different definitions when defined in the "definition section" of the insurance policy contract. While agreed value is pretty much self explanatory, being that both parties have "agreed" to the value prior to a loss, stated value is defined differently in different policies in different states and is referred to in the "how we settle a loss" section of the policy. A stated value can also be a agreed value in some policies, which means in the event of a total loss you would actually get the stated value. Or, as in your case, it can be superseded by the actual cash value which would mean they would only pay "which ever is less", but to state that either is the case for all policies in all states is clearly misleading to someone who does not understand the difference.
Your post was not the only one I took exception to and I did not single out your post, but you were the one who "called me out" so I'm responding to your post. Some of the others had misinformation or opinions I did not agree with. I spent 35 years dealing with this stuff. I traveled to many states and had to familiarize myself with policies in many different states and know the differences that are inherent in policies to conform to specific state laws. I'm not a lawyer, an I'm not practicing law, but because of the job,I had to learn a considerable amount about tort and contractual law and have been called upon by lawyers to explain policy coverage issues to them and have been qualified by judges as an expert witness, so I'm not talking out of my butt.
I rarely post advise about the mechanical aspects of our car hobby, because I know there are people, like yourself, that know far more about these cars and mechanics than I do. But when I do post something to be as a matter of fact, it is. I do post opinions about personal preferences: like original vs upgrades, etc. but I realize everyone may not have the same opinions. Now with all this being said, I am since retired and no longer have to argue these finer points of insurance and law, so this will be my last post defending my facts. When you told me I put my clutch in backwards, I accepted you at your word, because I was confident you knew more than I did. I didn't think I had gotten distracted enough to do that but sure enough that was what my problem was. I've commented to many people that the guy from So. California will tell you straight answers about these cars. Some might say the insurance and laws are devised by lawyers to make job security for themselves and sometimes defy common sense. Again, I stand by my post that some things are best left to professionals and the forum is not the best place for insurance shopping/advise. I seem to recall we had one of these "banters" over someone seeking claim advise. At that time you searched out someone who you qualified as "in the know" that did not totally agree with me....That is why they have plaintiff council and defendant council, judges, juries, and arbitrators.

 

[TR3driver]

1) In response to your latest post: The answer is ANY state. The " agency and principal" relationship between the sales agent and the insurance company, means that the agent is representing or acting on behalf and at the direction of the company, and anything he says IS the words of the company. So, If he makes an error and tells you something is covered...IT IS. This is based on a legal principal called "reliance" which means that you relied on the word of the agent in order to agree to the written contract. This is not to say that the burden of proof is not on you to prove that the agent misinformed you if he/she does not fess up to their error. This is why agents and lawyers carry errors and omission insurance...so it does not get into their own pocket if they make a mistake.

I am certainly not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television. But I have friends who are, and they have basically said "Always get it in writing". As you say, the burden of proof is on you as to what was said, and it takes a court hearing (if the company doesn't just take your word for it, which is improbable to say the least) to establish the facts. So you as a consumer are stuck hiring a lawyer and going to court to roll the dice on getting a recovery based on "he said, she said". NOT a good position to be in, unless you like playing games where the odds are against you and the rewards are small compared to the risk.

Now as an agent, I'm sure you need to be aware of the possibility, and take steps to (hopefully) ensure you don't make a mistake (plus as you note, have insurance coverage in case you do make a mistake). But as a consumer, it would be extremely unwise to rely on verbal advice that contradicts the terms of the written contract.

2) Your first post makes reference to "stated value" and "agreed value". I'm sure since you have been though it with a claim, that is a accurate comparison for your state. However, both of those terms are terms typically used in insurance and can have totally different definitions when defined in the "definition section" of the insurance policy contract. While agreed value is pretty much self explanatory, being that both parties have "agreed" to the value prior to a loss, stated value is defined differently in different policies in different states and is referred to in the "how we settle a loss" section of the policy. A stated value can also be a agreed value in some policies, which means in the event of a total loss you would actually get the stated value. Or, as in your case, it can be superseded by the actual cash value which would mean they would only pay "which ever is less", but to state that either is the case for all policies in all states is clearly misleading to someone who does not understand the difference.

Well, it is certainly true that some insurance companies redefine the English language in the fine print. So as you say, they can redefine what "stated value" means. I've sometimes thought that the "That's glory for you" section of Alice Through the Looking Glass was written after dealing with an insurance company. Even "actual cash value" is often re-defined to mean something completely different than what something would sell for in cash on the open market.
But there is a meaning for the phrase "stated value" that the rest of the world uses.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/stated-value

If you know of a company that routinely redefines "stated value" to mean something other than the dictionary definition, I wish you would share that information with us. If more of us refused to deal with dishonest companies, there might be fewer dishonest companies.

Your post was not the only one I took exception to and I did not single out your post, but you were the one who "called me out" so I'm responding to your post. Some of the others had misinformation or opinions I did not agree with. I spent 35 years dealing with this stuff. I traveled to many states and had to familiarize myself with policies in many different states and know the differences that are inherent in policies to conform to specific state laws. I'm not a lawyer, an I'm not practicing law, but because of the job,I had to learn a considerable amount about tort and contractual law and have been called upon by lawyers to explain policy coverage issues to them and have been qualified by judges as an expert witness, so I'm not talking out of my butt.

I did not mean to suggest that you were (and still don't). I appreciate your taking time to clarify, even if I do feel that you are looking at this from an agent's point of view rather than the consumers.

Again, I stand by my post that some things are best left to professionals and the forum is not the best place for insurance shopping/advise.

Shopping I entirely agree with. Everyone should do their own "due diligence" and investigate thoroughly what a specific policy says before buying it. Even from the same company, your policy may not say the same thing mine does (and almost certainly won't if we live in different states).

As far as general advise on what sort of policy to look for and where; I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Any given insurance agent is only going to try to sell you insurance from the company (or companies) he represents. For example, my Mercury agent never once told me about Hagerty, even when he said that Mercury probably wouldn't write a policy for me. Asking on an Internet forum seems like a much easier first step (but only a first step) than calling every agent in town. A company agent is also not going to share specific stories, good or bad, about his company.

But that's just my opinion, and I guarantee it is worth everything it costs

 

[Geo Hahn]

I always think of this caution. If you have a personal umbrella policy (which probably most of us should) make sure your umbrella company accepts the specialty auto policy as support...

This is an issue that I ran into. Some of the classic car insurers have arrangements with the big carriers by which they (the big carriers) will write an umbrella that includes the vehicles that are insured by another, specific (classic car) carrier.

For example, when I have my other lines all with State Farm they would write an umbrella if I used Condon & Skelly for my classic cars. Later I moved my coverage to Allstate and they would not write an umbrella with C&S underwriting some losses. I understand that - if the worst happen and the umbrella came into play they wanted to be the only carrier sitting at the negotiating table. I had to go with an umbrella policy through an unknown (to me) name in California.

Later Allstate came to an agreement with Hagerty so I moved my classic car coverage to them and Allstate wrote the umbrella.

So there are several ways this can be handled but it is a detail to keep in mind.

BTW - Hagerty is an agent, not an insurance company - though we speak of them as if they were. The coverage is actually provided by an insurance company that Hagerty changes from time to time. At this time coverage is provided by Essentia Insurance. The relationship is pretty much seamless though as I believe Hagerty has both underwriting and claims settlement authority (at least up to the point that I have experienced).

I worked in the insurance sector for about 25 years so I understand (and sometimes had to deal with) the concept of detrimental reliance. But I have to agree with what I read as Randall's point -- that oral promises by an agent aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

 

[Crankshaft]

I don't suppose that any "oral" promise would be worth the paper it was "written" on.

 

[Kleykamp]

I guess you guys must be righter than me. I just made all this stuff up to hear my head rattle. Sadly the time I spent in training and then in continuing education classes to satisfy the requirements of the state department of insurance was totally wasted. I should have just come to the LBC forum for my insurance background. I've been thinking about a side job to supplement my retirement and get some money to spend on my LBC. Anybody got any tips on how to pilot a 747...traveling would be a nice perk...or brain surgery because I could make more money...that would be nice. Now someone is going to tell me pilots make more than brain surgeons and I'm wrong again.

 

[Popeye]

This is not to say that the burden of proof is not on you to prove that the agent misinformed you if he/she does not fess up to their error.

I think we all agree this is a difficult aspect of oral agreements. We can individually decide our risk profile when $5-50k (or more) value is at stake.

Personally I appreciate this discussion, and thank all the participants for the diverse points of views. I realize - like oral promises - written words in a forum do not necessarily make facts. Please do not assume that stating your personal experiences is likened to "hearing your head rattle".

P.S. I am a private pilot, and have been in a 747 cockpit in-flight (not in the seat). I can provide a tiny perspective in to how to pilot a 747 - but cannot teach how to fly one.

 

[sail]

I am on the self insured side. Gotta have insurance if i run over some guy, otherwise I crash it my tuff luck. Odds, luck, but mine is just a 50 year old used car, not a 747.