The problems and premiums on very high value modern cars are increasing. There have been two well publicised repair bills on McLaren F1s a couple of years ago which were around £1m, but in the last year the insurance market has seen a number of total loss fire claims.
There was £4m on a Ferrari F40 Prototype, £3m on a Porsche GT1 and a couple of McLaren P1s at around £1m each to name a few. Claims like these really bite into the premium pool for these sorts of cars. Leaving aside these total loss claims, the cost of repairs from ordinary accidents is huge e.g. a door for a LaFerrari is over £110,000.
Some of these claims are making insurers withdraw from the market, even for older classics. The European spec Ferrari F40 needs the fuel bags in the petrol tank replaced every ten years at a cost of around £12,000. Insurers have found that inferior and cheaper non Ferrari bags and fuel lines have been installed in some cars so they don’t want to insure F40s any more. Many of the modern cars will have a carbon fibre monocoque or “tub” and if that is impacted by the accident manufacturers are saying the tub needs to be replaced. To do this on a Bugatti Veyron costs about £500,000.
So, the upshot of all of this is that all insurers want to get these cars onto a realistic premium charging structure with appropriate excess levels. Insurers might impose a 1% of value excess which seems very reasonable on a £20,000 car at £200, but this amounts to £20,000 excess on a £2m car. This is the sort of level of excess insurers will be tending to want on cars of high tech construction as opposed to older classic cars with a chassis.
