Race Day Insurance

[RacingPete]

Does anyone racing have race insurance for their car and if so do they find it worthwhile?

I am taking the Ginetta G20 to Mallory Park and I have never had luck there, with 30 other Ginettas on the track I am slightly afraid the car might get a battering. Any good insurers around, and what are the premiums like?

Also, does it make you drive faster knowing your car is covered?

[Wanstead]

I was talking to one of the drivers in our championship (Sports 2000) at the weekend. He had a hefty shunt a couple of weeks ago and said that if he hadn’t insured the car it would be for sale for parts by now.
Apparently the premium was approx £200 for £12k of cover with £2k excess.

Edited by Wanstead on Wednesday 27th August 07:56

[Jemco Andy]

Pete, I'll drop you an email. Our thing is Motorsport Insurance and you can find me on the Ginetta website - I insure a number of G20's & G50's.

(We ourselves also race, running a G50 in Britcar)


Andy Hancock
www.insuremotorsport.com

[jellison]

Wanstead said:

I was talking to one of the drivers in our championship (Sports 2000) at the weekend. He had a hefty shunt a couple of weeks ago and said that if he hadn’t insured the car it would be for sale for parts by now.
Apparently the premium was approx £200 for £12k of cover with £2k excess.

Edited by Wanstead on Wednesday 27th August 07:56

I think you will find 99% of people do not do this.

If you sit down and work it out it just DOES NOT Stack up.

2k Excess is laughable - Rememeber Insurance is just a form or legalised Robbery;)

[RacingPete]

Jemco Andy said:

Pete, I'll drop you an email. Our thing is Motorsport Insurance and you can find me on the Ginetta website - I insure a number of G20's & G50's.

Maybe I shouldn't have added the lack of luck at Mallory part... premium going up

[Jemco Andy]

It's a personal choice, thats true (and that might have included the chap asking for the higher excess to reduce premiums). But for many it's having the piece of mind that the car will be at the next race weekend, no matter what.


Your estimation of only 1% of race drivers/race teams having insurance is thankfully (massively) wide of the mark. I'm happy to mail you with some facts & figures on how large the UK motorsport insurance industry is.

Andy

[jellison]

Jemco Andy said:

It's a personal choice, thats true (and that might have included the chap asking for the higher excess to reduce premiums). But for many it's having the piece of mind that the car will be at the next race weekend, no matter what.


Your estimation of only 1% of race drivers/race teams having insurance is thankfully (massively) wide of the mark. I'm happy to mail you with some facts & figures on how large the UK motorsport insurance industry is.

Andy

Let me rephase that 99% of People that pay for their own cars and racing. When you are doing it at a Team national level I can very much understand the logic of it.

It just does not stack up for Club MS. As for "But for many it's having the piece of mind that the car will be at the next race weekend, no matter what.", well most people in Club MS are not that stressed if they miss a race!

Feel free to send me the stuff though. Mind you we generally fix any issue ourselves with some outside help (for bits we cannot do). My Budget is likely much much less than yours - but it is JUST a bit of Weekend fun;)

Edited by jellison on Wednesday 27th August 11:05

[Graham]

I've had my cars insured a couple of times when we've let others drive it. Premiums have been reasonable, and a very different experience from road insurance.

Recently had a young lad 17yo test drive the tuscan ( at mallory interestingly) and apparently the insurers were very helpfull, and even took a look at his previous in car video and race results into account when calculating the premium..

I've never insured it when im driving though... maybe I should have...my shunt at cadwell in 07 realistically took me out for 07 and 08..!!! and took my britcar 24hr drive with it too due to lack of funds after rebuilding the car... although some of that was lost income for not working or 2 weeks whilst We rebuilt it..

Edited by Graham on Thursday 28th August 17:35

[Racylady]

Pete, I know Ginetta recently offered insurance themselves - not sure if they still do. In my opinion, you'd need to do quite a lot of damage to a Ginetta to make it worth the premium + the excess.
I'm not racing at Mallory but should be coming along as it's fairly local to me so will try to actually say hello this time!

[Jemco Andy]

Graham, the lad/father in question were one of my clients. It helps enormously when talking to Underwriters if I have additional information - & in-car cameras fall into this category. I'm glad the experience was satisfactory for them both.

Don't forget, people only buy things in life for two reasons - for pleasure & to prevent pain. Unfortunately, even as a Broker, I would admit that insurance falls into the 2nd category!

Racing lady - insuring a race car may well come at a cost, and a new set of tyres or parts for the G20 may be what motivates you & others to go faster, not piece of mind of insurance. The 'luxury' of insurance is not for everyone but Graham's comment above about missing races is very typical. And it's not all about cost - there are alot of benefits to be had, free unlimited test / track day cover for instance.

Sorry to everyone if above has skirted with PH's own rules about advertising etc. But the forum heading is race insurance, and I'm just trying to add informed comments.

thanks
Andy

[megamaniac]

We insured our race car for the 24hr last year and the competion insurance company said the damage was the result of seperate incidents and therefore subject to seperate excesses.£1500 worth of excesses meant there was nothing left to claim,robbing barstewards.

[jellison]

megamaniac said:

We insured our race car for the 24hr last year and the competion insurance company said the damage was the result of seperate incidents and therefore subject to seperate excesses.£1500 worth of excesses meant there was nothing left to claim,robbing barstewards.

What do you expect. Insurance largely a waste of time, just something (on the road) you have to have unless some chav scumbag. Does not add up for racing - when you might stack it once every 3 or 4 years (if doing it regualrly - wel that is telling you something - You are Crap at Driving). Would not have helped in my recnet stack, if the excess was 2k. Likley 4k's worth but as we did most of the repairs bill will likely be a tad under 2k!;)

Not stacked for .......... I can't remember.

[stockhatcher]

i have recently made a claim on my race insurance for my stock hatch race car. So i'll give you my view.


you asked whether it makes you drive any faster/harder? - in my case possibly, or at least i would be more inclined to make a move if it was 50/50 than without insurance. this is actually a bad thing. however in the cut and thrust of the first lap or so it does give you peace of mind. i remember clearly thinking as two cars crashed in to each other directly infront of me at paddock hill bend " thank fk i'm insured" coz it looked like i was going to join them a half second later ( i didn't but that is another story!)
with insurance its worth working out what an accident is likely to cost you in all probability, in my case (stock hatch) i estimated that most accidents that my car is likely to suffer would be covered by £3000, even though the value of my car is £10k. on a slight tangent if you consider the cost of repairing a car ( if you can't do it yourself) then it almost makes less sense to compete with a cheaper car than an expensive one ( within reason) as some of the costs are the same regardless - e.g. labour. so in my case i *could* race a 205 stock hatch that stands me at £1500, rather than the £10k of my 106, but the repair cost would be the same, assuming i want to fix it.


anyway, there are a couple of things to realise about race insurance, firstly the excess, i had a policy that bought back my £1000 excess for £70. this means that if i have a crash over £1000 i pay nothing but the premium, however most insurance is based on an aggregate sum, that is it will only pay out on the first accident, which is ok if you go straight into the tyre barriers by yourself, but if you play pinball with the cars around you, that can be considered to be more than one accident, so if you first hit is not big enough to trigger the excess, you don't get paid.even if the car ends up being a write off. however buying the excess back can over come this. ( this is something that i found out last month during my claim)

the downsides to insurance is that i think it is totally incompatible for someone chasing a championship as it takes so long to get the go ahead, it took 6 weeks for my insurers to pay out, during which time i have missed two races, and the car is only just being rebuilt now! so you have to bear that fact in mind

on the plus side there is something very satisfying about handing your car over to the body shop, and gettign someone else to do the running around and repairs. it was the PITA that was chasing ebay for parts that pissed me off more than the cost of an accident i had a few years ago. ( even tho i did save £1000 on the cost)

so in summary


work out how much a reasonable crash is likely to cost to repair
buy the excess back, as this gives you considerably more cover
consider the impact on your racing calendar waiting for insurance approval would have.
work out how often you crash, the cost of those crashes and then the cost of insurance and see which in the long run is cheaper..

if you want to see my smashes, go to you tube billyboy205gti, i also have the uninsured crash on pistonheads ( check profile)

i would add that the cost of my recent smash was £3150, so i guessed about right, my insurers were moris.co.uk which can be done online, the night before and all the paperwork can be electronically submitted. oh and read the small print, you hav to have the accident confirmed by the COC, the race organiser, and take photos/video evidence of the damage before you leave the circuit. in my accident vid on you tube, the race you can hear in the background was the race i was competing in.

finally, its not always a good thing to show your insurers your on board vid, i did however and it was looking iffy for the payout reference above.

hth.

Edited by stockhatcher on Friday 29th August 19:36

[stockhatcher]

jellison said:

megamaniac said:

We insured our race car for the 24hr last year and the competion insurance company said the damage was the result of seperate incidents and therefore subject to seperate excesses.£1500 worth of excesses meant there was nothing left to claim,robbing barstewards.

What do you expect. Insurance largely a waste of time, just something (on the road) you have to have unless some chav scumbag. Does not add up for racing - when you might stack it once every 3 or 4 years (if doing it regualrly - wel that is telling you something - You are Crap at Driving). Would not have helped in my recnet stack, if the excess was 2k. Likley 4k's worth but as we did most of the repairs bill will likely be a tad under 2k!;)

Not stacked for .......... I can't remember.

not necessarily, you could be crap at preparation, causing the car to fail and send you off track, or more likley in the middle of the pack surrounded by a bunch of monkeys who have no idea about racing etiquette - a la stock hatch. ( why the ARDS doesn't cover this i have no idea!! )

[skeggysteve]

RacingPete said:

.....

I am taking the Ginetta G20 to Mallory Park and I have never had luck there, ....

I can only come along on the Sunday but I'll bring extra tyraps

RacingPete said:

Also, does it make you drive faster knowing your car is covered?

I'll answer that one at Mallory - after the races

Seriously - do you think having insurance will make you drive quicker?

[RobM77]

I've always been of the opinion that how hard you try is related to how fast you go in a sort of bell curve. What I mean by that is that you can be two seconds off the pace, try harder and be only a second off the pace, but then try harder again and by two seconds off the pace again! Driving a racing car fast is all about being in the sweet spot where you're trying just hard enough to be going as fast as possible, but not so hard that you only go slower. Remember the famous story of when Jackie Stewart was told to slow down in a race at Watkins Glen and he ended up going faster without realising it?

[BenElliottRacing]

When paul o neil punted me off.

insurance £700
Damage Cost £ 6k
Insurance payout £1500

laughable. Insurance company hid in their small print that they do not cover VAT on any portion of the parts or labour cost.

I only insured the car because its part of the agreement with my sponsor who financed it.

MORIS cover VAT I beleive but the company ginetta recommended didn't. I used MORIS from round 2 onwards.

[BenElliottRacing]

quote from moris:

£234.72 for double header with 1k excess

valued car at 10k.

seems reasonable

[absolutely]

We've never had insurance for racing, no point in our eyes, if we crash it, we fix it. It is part of racing. The premiums we've been quoted, we might as well buy new cars for the price.

[jellison]

BenElliottRacing said:

quote from moris:

£234.72 for double header with 1k excess

valued car at 10k.

seems reasonable

and how many round in you series! Barking must be 3k just on insurance - if you can't spanner it to fix it though!

I'm with Absolutely.