Kit Car Cover For Specialist Vehicles

A car that you have built up from its components or in kit form turns out to be what is very much one of a kind - it's a specialist vehicle. In fact it's so much of a special vehicle that when it comes to arranging kit car cover, a dedicated, motor insurance specialist might prove one of the most certain ways of securing just the right cover for you and your vehicle.

Of course, in many respects, arranging insurance for your kit car is very much like arranging any other form of motor insurance. The law requires that you have a minimum of third party insurance if the vehicle is to be driven on the public roads; you might elect to add to that the risk of the vehicle being damaged or destroyed by fire; or you might choose to go the whole hog and arrange fully comprehensive cover.

All of these options remain available if you have a kit car to insure, but a specialist broker is also in a position to advise on those areas in which cover raises additional points for concern:

• Insurers - one of the initial obstacles, for example, is that many mainstream insurers simply decline to cover kit cars. A specialist insurance provider's website might prove useful in guiding you towards those insurers that actually want your business;
• Values - one of the most important aspects of arranging cover is agreeing with the insurer the vehicle's value. As with most forms of insurance, getting adequate cover typically relies on looking at the worst case scenario. If your kit car is completely written off in an accident, or stolen and not recovered, you probably expect the insurance to compensate you to the full value of the car. Obviously, this is only going to happen if the parties to the insurance contract have previously agreed that value;
• Salvage - standard forms of motor insurance naturally also include such a worst case event of the vehicle being a write-off. On the settlement of the claim, however, what remains of the vehicle (the salvage) formally becomes the property of the insurance company, which arranges recover of the scrap value through its commercial relationship with a salvage company. If you own a kit car, however, it is probable that in such an event, you intend to salvage the wreckage for yourself, strip out any usable components and use them to rebuild the original or a different car. A specialist kit car insurer might help guide you towards those policies in which the policy holder retains such salvage rights;
• Components - standard motor insurance, of course, focuses on already built, ready-for-the-road vehicles. Kit car cover, on the other hand, is likely to be needed from the moment the building project starts and the first of the components start to arrive in the workshop or garage.