Cheap classic car insurance

Cheap is invariably a relative term.

When it comes to obtaining quotes and cover for a classic car it becomes even more so, and it can often throw up more questions than it answers.

You see the very word ‘cheap’ implies a judgement of a thing’s value, a relatively straightforward task if you are dealing with a mainstream, mass market car of known history mileage and age. Straightforward because the value hinges on mass market opinion, a thing by which we all tacitly agree to be bound and which is not (generally) subject to the vagaries of fashion and eccentricity.

Which places an insurance company in a difficult position when it comes to assessing the risk in providing cover for a classic car. You see, it is all very well you telling the insurance company that your 1985 Ford Sierra is worth ten grand. But who says it is? To some it may merely represent a formerly mass produced travelling salesman’s car that is now little more than a worn out and outdated piece of scrap. Such a person may further argue that the paint job and painstaking restoration you carried out was merely a manifestation of your own silliness.

But insurance companies won’t. If anything, insurance companies are staggeringly fair in this regard. They tend to take a balanced and (necessarily) subjective view so long as the customer is prepared to do the same in return.

And herein lies the anomaly in the notion of cheap classic car insurance – because in a fair and equitable world, there should probably be no such thing. The concept should really be one of cost effective classic car insurance.

It has been all too common for let’s say, an immaculately preserved low mileage example of an old Ford Escort to find itself insured on a highly optimistic yet notional mass market value alone (the conventional parameters under which you insure your vehicle) and then for its owner to quibble about the insurer’s more realistic valuation should the vehicle find itself written off.

Now let’s return to the idea of cheap classic car insurance, because it would have been so simple a matter for the owner to have consulted with an insurance company, obtained a quote based on a mutually agreed valuation (upon examination by the insurer or otherwise), factoring in the actual or proposed use of the vehicle, the arrangements for its storage and whatever limitations on its use.

An insurance company has after all a right to know the precise details of the risk it is expected to take in order that it can accurately value its liability, reflect that in the nature of cover and in the cost of the premium… and thereby be fair to the client. If the result of this candour is that you feel that you have obtained cheap classic car insurance, then an agreeable transaction has been made.

If however, you think that understating and therefore under insuring the value or ignoring the conditions of your policy represents cheap classic car insurance, then you may wish to consider whether a bookmaker would be likely to consider offering you odds on a horse you were only prepared to name after the race had finished, and then happily pay you out.

Online car insurance comparison is far and away the best method of seeking a quote for classic car insurance. There are companies that specialise wholly in this area, indeed some that specialise in individual models and marques and still others that have specific criteria for intended use. The insurance industry even apply a surprisingly loose definition to what exactly qualifies as a classic car, so shop online, shop around and above all, be prepared to be up front and realistic.