Declaring Import on insurance...

craig_jdm · Post by **craig_jdm** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:21 am

bb1boy wrote:
big damo wrote:...and im paying £3700
Holy crap, what did you put your occupation as? Stunt man/Getaway driver..?

I think in the illnesses he may have accidentally clicked blind

bb1boy · Post by **bb1boy** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:29 am

snike77 · Post by **snike77** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:50 am

Hi guys

I've worked in insurance myself for 10 years and we have a lot of bespoke schemes available, ie: for jap imports, light mods etc

If anyone needs a hand with any insurance issues or quotes, feel free to let me know, ill get you a quote within 24 hours

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 4:34 pm

nitin_s1 wrote:
BrettGee wrote:So what if I'm happy to get ukdm value price for it?
If you're happy then that's fine. I have an Import car and if something was to happen to it, I wouldn't want the the insurers to give me a £800ish price which is what the market value of an UKDM Prelude is at the moment. Just imo..

Lol, Nitin, you would never make it as an insurance adviser, I don't think you could afford the premium for the required Professional Indemnity insurance...

Post by **Merlin** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 8:04 pm

THere must be some other variable that influences UK Vs JDM quotes. I always get bigger quotes for JDM over UKDM.

Post by **Donald** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 8:36 pm

It's probably just a blanket import thing since most other countries are LHD, and LHD cars on RHD roads don't mix that well. I know of course Japan is RHD but as said, perhaps they just group all imports together as one to make things easier. Also maybe safety regs/tests are different in some countries? e.g Japanese shaken are biennial whereas we have an MOT every year. So I guess they make people pay a premium for this.

Dbo · Post by **Dbo** » Fri Jul 12, 2013 9:44 pm

i was told by my insurance advisor that "import" is assumed that if parts are needed to fix damage they have too be sorced from the country of origin and therefor more expensive

even so they know full well that ukdm parts fit and are available over here

hence why fords were the cheapest to ensure as parts so easy to obtain, they consider fords to be english yet they are american and as such imports

big damo · Post by **big damo** » Sat Jul 13, 2013 12:31 am

I put my job down as a security officer

Post by **lewd lude lover** » Sat Jul 13, 2013 8:13 am

job is a BIG decider on cost and how that job interacts with import ownership.

The simple answer is that imports cost you more to buy than UKDM cars so will cost more to insure.

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Sat Jul 13, 2013 1:45 pm

You are all wrong

.... kind of.

The main reason that grey (not parallel) imports cost more to insure is that they do not carry an ABI vehicle code. This means that the insurance testing centre at Thatcham hasn't crashed it, broke into it, etc and then seen how long it took to repair to give it a code.

Most insurers get their group ratings from the abi code, a lot of companies just don't insure grey imports so the price is usually higher due to a limited market availability.

To put that into practice, if you did an online quote for a ukdm model, insurer A may be £500, insurer B £550, insurer C £600, insurer D £650 insurer E £700 and so on...., so your best quote is £500.

Now you run through an import quote. Insurers A, B, C & D do not cover imports, so they disappear from the list. Insurer E now appears at the top of the list at £700, which is exactly the same cost as before. But because of "availability", the person doing the quote thinks " fook me, an import costs £200 more than a Ukdm...", which it does, but not because the insurers are charging any more for it, if that makes sense?

Now that said, in general, grey imports are often higher spec'd and often more powerful than the ukdm equivalent, so ignoring the "availability" bit above, an insurer will potentially rate them higher than the UK equivalent. The availability of parts can cause repairs in delays as some parts must be imported, this affects the overall repair cost so again they can attract a higher premium.

I remember years back Norwich Union telling me how an import ( was a USA model if I recall correctly ) went in for repair and they provided a courtesy car for the duration of the repairs, as per the policy cover. It took 4 months for a crucial part to arrive, meanwhile they were providing a free car to the chap! After that specific case, they reviewed courtesy car cover on moors and restricted it to a maximum of two weeks cover!

A grey import Lude may be pretty much the same as a ukdm, but as Thatcham don't test old imports, insurers can't be expected to know the difference between each and every model of car. I think Thatcham a group rating guideline though for those companies that choose to insure imports.

Any way, to summarise, grey imports are more difficult to insure than ukdm and are are usually higher rated.