Struggling to get insured

[Ian C]

Is anyone else in the Uk struggling to get insured. The car is due in the next couple of weeks but its proving to be a painful process. I thought I was a good risk ,
4th Lotus
59 years old
8 years specific no claims
I do have one speeding fine , 3 pts ( 2nd fine in 40 years driving )
5000 miles
Social only
Locked garage

My three previous cars were insured with Footman James ( CCI) , they will not insure the Emira at all
Adrian Flux £3,585
Reis £1,400 plus £169 to protect no claims
A Plan will not quote until I give them a reg no
Couple of companies not replying to any emails despite being open
The meerkat search is showing £650 to £750 but I was hoping to go with a specialist

One call took almost an hour yesterday , wanted to know how long I had had each Lotus, what % of time in the car is split between me and my wife, does the garage have CCTV and alarm, inside leg measurement .

Should it be this painful ??

Any suggestions very welcome

 

[Tonygcar]

Maybe double check? In Harrys 2022 roundup video he mentions FJ insured his Emira.

Yes I watched Harry’s video £70 odd quid for 9 month to add it to his group insurance, it will be great if admiral will do the same with my 2 Cars on our multi policy

 

[dzernski]

Yes I watched Harry’s video £70 odd quid for 9 month to add it to his group insurance, it will be great if admiral will do the same with my 2 Cars on our multi policy

Apologies - this turned into a long one

Entirely possible that they'd quote for him as he's an existing customer and sponsored by them. It'd look rather bad if one of your major sponsors decided you weren't a good risk....that and he's got a fleet policy of the size where they probably just look at combined value/mileage rather than each individual car.

Re Admiral, I suspect that's where I'm ending up as I've got a multicar policy with them. I do however have some claims experience with them where, surprise surprise, whilst you don't *have* to use their preferred repairers, you wouldn't get car recovery to anyone you wanted to use.

This ended up backfiring as their preferred repairer* had no idea what to do with a Camaro, couldn't wire it up properly, drained it of fuel (as I presume the fun of having a proper V8 to play with was too much - that and I believe they drove it around in a semi-repaired state to get parts of the repair done) and landed me with a box junction fine whilst attempting to deliver it back (it ended up broken down/out of fuel 200 metres away from my house).

I then had to finish the repair under protest as the car wasn't road legal (rear lights incorrect colour) and claimed it back via the Ombudsman as, despite quoting the precise section of the relevant traffic act and providing before/after pictures, the Admiral complaints department decided to stick with their original judgement. They lost, completely**.

Despite this particular experience I'm still using them. This is for two reasons. Firstly they're basically the only person I can find to quote my Camaro at a reasonable price. Secondly I know that if I end up in a further accident I can refer them back to the original one and they might believe me when I suggest that their preferred people are out of their depth.

Re Admiral generally, on stuff that is more UK normal my experience is much better. MY wife got rear ended whilst commuting nov'21 in our NC MX-5. After a minor delay in getting it to an "authorised repairer" they looked at it and wrote it off. Whilst this wasn't what I wanted, the number they gave us for the write off was more than reasonable (I'd been setting up for a fight and doing my research - it was the hardtop which can add a few grand) and payment was quick. Got a replacement car on the policy for not a fat lot (Harry's £70 not far off) as at that point it was a third car (the write off not having taken place yet), got the money back for the unexpired part of the MX-5s policy automatically and the deductible back fairly quickly as the subrogation came through quickly (this despite it apparently being too low to count as something automatically covered by the recoveries department - I was ready to have a fight on this as it's legally incorrect).

Anyway this is long winded way of saying I've seen both sides of Admiral. I wouldn't use them for something imported/rare, I would use them for something more common/domestic where there is a body of knowledge about repair, or if your car is either going to be totalled or walking wounded (so you're not constrained by their repairers).

*the recovery company managed to loose a major part of the car during recovery. If they hadn't, I'd likely have shortened the repair period by six months and prevented some of the later fun as it included the rear light cluster. Admiral didn't seem to get that they are vicariously liable for the actions of their agents and it didn't matter which of their agents had lost bits - they still have to fix it

**for a small bit of context, I'm an Insurance professional working in claims (mostly in the natural resources sector) so whilst I'm not an expert in motor claims, I still had to study it for my professional qualification and I know contract/tort law to a higher standard as that's what the job is

 

[JohnHoward]

Has anyone in the checkout process for a V6 auto managed to arrange insurance?

I have spent the afternoon ringing round and despite explaining multiple times that the auto is the same spec as the manual, none of the insurers have it listed and will not quote. The only company that quoted (Direct Line Select) insist on a tracker which I have not specified. I don't want to have to get a third party tracker fitted with all the additional cost of installation and subscriptions.

With delivery only a week away and any specialist insurers closed until Tuesday, I am running out of ideas. I need to pay for the car on Tuesday to meet the Lotus deadline of all funds being cleared by Thursday, but am reluctant to do so if I can't get insurance before I start transferring funds.

I will be happy to get it insured anywhere to get me on the road and I can review again once insurance becomes more widely available in the coming months.

Any ideas?

 

[Boombang]

I had a look at LV but when you read their T&Cs (I’m fun like that) it sounds like you’re supposed to use their bodyshops which freaked me out… I could be wrong and misread that so feel free to correct me anyone?

On my LV policy (not on an Emira) you can use your own repairer however the excess is altered and there are other restrictions.

We used an LV repairer, then another one, and another one, and another one, then the 5th finally did the job to an ok standard. We're coming up to a year through the complaint process and its probable I'll get a final response in the next week or so.

 

[TomE]

Has anyone in the checkout process for a V6 auto managed to arrange insurance?

I have spent the afternoon ringing round and despite explaining multiple times that the auto is the same spec as the manual, none of the insurers have it listed and will not quote. The only company that quoted (Direct Line Select) insist on a tracker which I have not specified. I don't want to have to get a third party tracker fitted with all the additional cost of installation and subscriptions.

With delivery only a week away and any specialist insurers closed until Tuesday, I am running out of ideas. I need to pay for the car on Tuesday to meet the Lotus deadline of all funds being cleared by Thursday, but am reluctant to do so if I can't get insurance before I start transferring funds.

I will be happy to get it insured anywhere to get me on the road and I can review again once insurance becomes more widely available in the coming months.

Any ideas?

Sorry to hear it’s such a pain. I assume you’ve tried the Lotus specialists like Classicline, Manning, Footman James, AIB, Adrian Flux?

 

[CDM1855]

Has anyone in the checkout process for a V6 auto managed to arrange insurance?

I have spent the afternoon ringing round and despite explaining multiple times that the auto is the same spec as the manual, none of the insurers have it listed and will not quote. The only company that quoted (Direct Line Select) insist on a tracker which I have not specified. I don't want to have to get a third party tracker fitted with all the additional cost of installation and subscriptions.

With delivery only a week away and any specialist insurers closed until Tuesday, I am running out of ideas. I need to pay for the car on Tuesday to meet the Lotus deadline of all funds being cleared by Thursday, but am reluctant to do so if I can't get insurance before I start transferring funds.

I will be happy to get it insured anywhere to get me on the road and I can review again once insurance becomes more widely available in the coming months.

Any ideas?

Try a broker, I was quoted last year on an Auto V6 with Equity Red Star (Lloyds syndicate insurer), not cheap (900 GBP) due to me not having NCD, but quoted me right away even though no insurers had any Emira information. It’s a performance car policy

 

[JohnHoward]

Sorry to hear it’s such a pain. I assume you’ve tried the Lotus specialists like Classicline, Manning, Footman James, AIB, Adrian Flux?

Thanks Tom, I haven't tried these, but will do, thanks for the suggestion. I was really thinking that if the usual household name type car insurers covered the manual (which they all do) it shouldn't be too far a stretch to get the auto covered.
One thing I did find out is that all the big name type insurers (that you see on the comparison sites) only update their vehicle lists once a month and all the ones I spoke to either do this at the end or beginning of each month. None of them will go to underwriters to seek advice, they are only intersted in selling volume I guess and don't want complicated enquiries.

Looking at the info I got from Thatcham, that would explain why none of them are lisitng the auto yet as it has missed thier update cycle for April. Hopefully the specialist insurers will be more on the ball and most likely ask underwriters to quote on a more ad hoc basis.

The timing of the Easter holiday is a pain. I was saying to my wife today that I can't believe we have waitied 2 years and we get notification right before an effective 4 day shutdown with Easter. Next week is going to be a scramble!
Thanks for your help.

 

[JohnHoward]

Try a broker, I was quoted last year on an Auto V6 with Equity Red Star (Lloyds syndicate insurer), not cheap (900 GBP) due to me not having NCD, but quoted me right away even though no insurers had any Emira information. It’s a performance car policy

Thanks for the reply, will do as per my reply to Tom and get a broker to quote. Thanks for the info on Equity Red Star, knowing a company that will already cover gives me a good headstart.

 

[Magicman]

Sorry to hear it’s such a pain. I assume you’ve tried the Lotus specialists like Classicline, Manning, Footman James, AIB, Adrian Flux?

You can probably skip Adrian Flux, on my manual they insisted on a tracker and were over double most quotes

 

[Tonygcar]

Just seen this on compare the market website AUTO INSURANCE

 

[Bod27]

Just seen this on compare the market website AUTO INSURANCE

Great spot, only problem is ,not one of the insurance companies they have will insure me yet the will if i change back to a manual version !

 

[CDM1855]

Great spot, only problem is ,not one of the insurance companies they have will insure me yet the will if i change back to a manual version !

also wouldn’t provide me a quote

 

[DJS]

Same here, it seems its only just updated on the system but not ready to quote yet, should be ok this week I reckon.

 

[JohnHoward]

I spoke to a number of 'household name' insurance companies last week and I learned a lot including the answer to why you can't get auto quotes yet. The household/big name brands that come up on compare the market, confused etc mostly use the same quote system with their front end bolted on.
I realised that they all ask identical questions in exactly the same order, so I asked one of them about it and they confirmed that this is the case. It also explains why you can't get quotes. Their system is updated once a month with new vehicles. One company told me that this happens on the 28th of the month and another mentioned the 1st of the month, but neither were absolutely sure of the date, but both confirmed it was either the end or beginning of the month. They both said that there were no mid month updates even if requested by customers.
I think it is highly likely that auto insurance will become widely available from early May. The only big brand (household type name) that would insure the auto Emira was Direct Line Select (they only insure cars worth more than £75K) but they insist on a tracker. They checked with their underwriters for me and confirmed that the risk was identical for the auto compared to the manual, so the quote would be as per the manual price. I didn't configure the tracker, so no good to me.
The good news here is that if Direct Line see the auto the same risk as manual that is likely to be the industry view, so I would expect that anyone wanting auto insurance can expect to pay the same as the manual quotes that you can get (many of) from the comparison sites.
I have got a broker on the case now as I need my insurance in place for Friday delivery.

Only 4 more sleeps!!

 

[JohnHoward]

V6 FE Auto is now coming up as an option on confused.com, but no quotes available. I think this will be for the reason I gave in my post above re monthly updates. I am hoping to hear back from an independent broker today that I contacted over the weekend. I will also be doing more phoning round. Full report to follow later today.

 

[JohnHoward]

Also available on moneysupermarket.com is the V6 FE Auto. It comes back as a 5 seater! - Is this the SUV Edition!
You can easily correct it to 2 seats. Still no quotes, but at least it is another place to search once insurers have the car on their systems.

 

[JohnHoward]

BREAKING NEWS ...............

I have now got a confirmed price for V6 FE Auto insurance via Mannings. The cover is underwitten by LV and LV underwriters have confirmed that the auto is essentially the same risk as the manual, so the manual price is honoured. It is a little bit more expensive @ £572.11 for my cover (cheapest manual cover elsewhere for me is sub £400). At least I can get it insured now. I will probably review in a month or two and will cancel if necessary and take a cheaper policy, obviously subject to cancellation fees.
I have got a call in with another broker, so will wait to see what they come back with before I purchase cover via Mannings.
For anyone else in a similar position to me, quote the ABI (Association of British Insurers) code 30019255 (for the V6 auto) and this helps the underwriters locate the car much more easily as the model details are still working their way through insurers systems.

More to follow ...........

 

[770K]

BREAKING NEWS ...............

I have now got a confirmed price for V6 FE Auto insurance via Mannings. The cover is underwitten by LV and LV underwriters have confirmed that the auto is essentially the same risk as the manual, so the manual price is honoured. It is a little bit more expensive @ £572.11 for my cover (cheapest manual cover elsewhere for me is sub £400). At least I can get it insured now. I will probably review in a month or two and will cancel if necessary and take a cheaper policy, obviously subject to cancellation fees.
I have got a call in with another broker, so will wait to see what they come back with before I purchase cover via Mannings.
For anyone else in a similar position to me, quote the ABI (Association of British Insurers) code 30019255 (for the V6 auto) and this helps the underwriters locate the car much more easily as the model details are still working their way through insurers systems.

More to follow ...........

Manning said they had another enquiry for auto this morning.

They are sending me quote which was something around £525 so all I need is the call from Lotus.

I have my Exige S1 with them and were easy to deal with and that has agreed valuation and track day cover.

 

[JohnHoward]

Now got insurance via Mannings as per post #37 above. Also paid in full today for the car (see separate thread - Paying for your Emira).
I am sure that the V6 auto insurance will be much more straightforward in a few weeks once all the quote systems have it listed properly. There is nothing like being an early adopter!

Only 3 more sleeps until delivery!

 

[Bod27]

I have also just spoken to Mannings, great service and have come up with a quote for my Auto, I tried LV earlier and they wouldn't quote as no tracker fitted , bet you cant guess who have come back with the best price with Mannings ?