How does your insurance company evaluate your collector car?
Collector cars are a much different game for your insurance company because insurance for your 50s classic car is located in a much different world than your brand new Honda Ridgeline.
So what exactly are they looking for in Insurance Land when you want to insure your ’64 Dodge Polara?
Bryce Walsh is the Regional Account Executive for Hagerty Insurance and he’s based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Bryce gives weekly seminars to Alberta brokers and one of his duties is to explain the collector car world to them because there are significant differences between regular insurance and collector car insurance.
He breaks it down to four basic points when he explains collector cars to Hagerty Insurance brokers. These are important things for you to learn as a customer because you should know where your broker stands when you talk to him about insuring your classic Vette.
The first one is “how rare is your old car?” Bryce explained rarity this way.
“Rarity basically means a limited run of these vehicles and there were only so many made in the world but another thing that can make a vehicle rare is maybe it was built by somebody famous or maybe it was owned by somebody famous.”
Number two is all about popularity with collectors in the hobby.
“Vehicles being actively bought and sold by collectors—you can see a lot of this action in the large auctions in North America and overseas but you can also tell by the price guides and some of the publications out there.”
Number three is all about consistency.
“Consistency means vehicle that has held its value or maintained its value over time. A lot of vehicles suffer from depreciation when they first come off the lot. Collector vehicles though, have a way of rebounding back and starting to rise in value is what we see.”
Number four is about how much you drive your beloved old car.
“It’s not a daily driver. This is probably the most crucial element of what makes a collector car collectible. It’s not being driven to work, it’s not getting groceries—the collectors are keeping the mileage low.”
Collector car insurance is a growth industry so Bryce’s information is pure gold because you need to know how your broker is trained to approach the world of classic cars.
