Change your lifestyle and you will be eligible to apply for all sorts of non standard specialist car insurance that is tailored to a particular genre or lifestyle group or club. The lifestyle factor is more predominant in the calculation and issuing of policies for classic cars than in any other form of specialist motor underwriting.
Classic car insurance policies are now based primarily upon usage limits and consequently tend to reflect the fact that classic cars are used differently than a normal everyday car, although the types of use social, domestic, pleasure, business and commuting, or for hire and racing, will still apply. Many a beloved classic motor will stay under wraps in the garage for many a month and is only brought out and paraded for special occasions and events.
The range, length and risk of these events will undoubtedly determine the level of price for a specialist classic car policy. Such events can be as innocuous as local classic car club meetings at predetermined destinations, fun runs, treasure hunts, vintage runs, air shows and displays, national classic rallies, film shoots, motor shows, trade shows or as extreme and heavy premium carrying as classic car racing or hill climbing.
Most specialist motor underwriters therefore appreciate that you may need a more tailored and flexible type of car insurance for a classic car, one that allows you to fit the policy around what is effectively your lifestyle risk. Your risk levels are calculated upon the way you use the classic car and the number of miles distance you cover in that car each year. These so called rating factors are adapted to play a much larger role in the calculation of a classic car insurance premium than the traditional factors that weigh heavily in standard car insurance premium calculation, such as Age or Gender.
Price has tended in the past not to be a large driver in the classic car insurance market, where quality of cover for cherished vehicles has always been seen as the primary marketing message. Underwriters have appreciated that the classic car is quite often considered as a 'baby' within the family unit and may in the past have taken advantage of the irrationality when considering price. However the introduction of many classic car insurance comparison websites on the Internet means that premium levels can no longer be ignored and that customers now rightly demand service and cover for their specialist car insurance lifestyle vagaries, at the right price.
It is now possible to obtain tailored online cover for even the most obscure car marque and the introduction of online underwriting has introduced a welcome level of competition into what had become a stagnant market. Group and affinity market buying power has also helped stimulate growth and push premium prices down through bulk buying power schemes. Whatever aspirations you may hold as a classic car owner it appears that with technology you are more increasingly likely to be judged financially by your lifestyle than its trappings that you must insure.
