Warning! Young driver car modifications

[unclebulgaria67]

As the title suggests this is a warning post to drivers and their parents about car modifications.

 

I was out the other evening and i noticed three young drivers with very heavily modified cars, with tinted window, sports exhausts etc. As they were only in their early 20's, if they had insurance with all these mods properly disclosed, it would have made the insurance very expensive. Many people carry out mods to their cars and don't even think about insurance.

 

If you fail to notify insurers of any modifications to a standard car, you are at risk of the insurers not paying out for any accident damage to your car. If you cause damage to third party property or injury/death to a third party, whilst your insurers may pay out to the third party as a duty under Road Traffic Act, they will come after you with court action if necessary to get their money back. The third party claim might be for tens of thousands.

 

A friend of mine crashed a heavily modified car many years ago and the car was a write off. He had not informed his insurers of some mods and took them off the car before the insurers engineer inspected. The engineer was not fooled and could see some evidence there had been previous mods, so the claim was declined. My friend argued that the engineer had no evidence the mods were on the car at the time of the accident and after months the insurers paid out.

 

If you are a parent and have Sons/daughters who modify their cars, please do make sure they advise their insurers and have the correct insurance. If they fail to do so, they risk a very expensive lesson. E.g no cover for car damage, liability for third party damages, having insurance cancelled making insurance unaffordable for years to come. They should check whether they can get insurance, before they start spending money on modifying their cars,

[unclebulgaria67]

Also meant to add, if you have a modified car stolen or broken into, don't expect an easy claim process, if you never disclosed the mods. If Insurers believe the car was stolen because it was more attractive to thieves, they might not pay out.

[Sidewinder]

Good advice - I knew somebody once who had only replaced standard wheels with alloys and then had a major headache with a theft claim as the change had made the risk of theft greater. I now do a lot of photography work for insurers and believe me, in the event of even the smallest claim they want detailed photos of the entire car and not just the area of damage.

[LZ-DEN]

very good advice,i told my insurance co when i removed the stock stereo as it had a fault and installed another aftermarket stereo that i had put away just in case i may have needed it ,and i made sure thats its listed on the schedule as a change to the stock stereo.

[dx100uk]

about time they used this to ban every car with a sports exhaust.

 

 

the noise is terrible.