I just spoke to my agent at State Farm to ask some pretty specific questions about insuring modified vehicles.
Since this sort of thing comes up often on SON I figured I would post the info for the archives.
The deal is that they will insure anything that was a factory option on that model and year of the car.
What they will NOT insure is “power adders” such as turbo chargers, super chargers and Nitrous if they were not included as factory options on that model and year of the vehicle.
“Upgrades” to items which were available on the car such as exhaust (I think most cars come with exhaust these days), intake, pistons, valve train, drive train, wheels, tires, differential, throttle body, etc etc etc. These are ALL OK since you are REPLACING a factory installed item, and not adding something.
I asked specifically about imported motors which were available for a specific chassis in a different country. I specifically reference the situation of an S13 chassis with an SR20DET. He said the turbo, etc is not an issue at that point because it was available for that chassis - even though not domestically. He basically explained “we can easily get away with going that route” - I don’t think there is any formal verbiage that covers this.
The other thing I asked about was hot rods and kit cars. Basically there is no “hot rod” insurance offered (I believe a hot rod is defined as not having stock motor). What they DO offer is kit car insurance but this is broken down to an individual basis and is done according to the vin - a kit car has its own vin and not a “nissan” vin or any other manufacturer. So there does not seem to be any possible loop hole there.
So, at least in the case of State Farm - the guys with SR and CA should be OK. The RB, 2JZ, v8, etc. You guys are screwed for coverage. :-/
I talked to state farm about getting an SR when we were doing the charity raffle, and he said it was fine as long as it was installed by a certified mechanic. Did they not say that to you, or was that implied in your post?
They didn’t mention anything about who could install what.
I actually even told him that I wanted to swap the motor and was trying to weigh my options and didn’t want insurance to be an issue. But I guess “I want to swap the motor” doesn’t necessarily imply that I’m doing it in my driveway.
Yea, he said that they won’t do it. They only do that in the case of a Kit car and like I explained, a kit car has a kit car vin, etc. Not a Nissan vin :-/
Yes, I’ve the same situation with the Co-operators. As long as the motor came factory in a similar or same chassis (ie s13 silvia = s13 240sx) etc… there is no problem at all, same with my silvia front end, it came factory and retains all of the factory saftey devises. They were not too keen on my intercooler, but I told them it was the only option at the time.
therefore as above, an s13 can have the following JDM engines
ca18de
ca18det
sr20de (90 - 91 silvia J’s and Q’s) Even an s15 motor, as it has the same code (sr20…) as they are unlikely to be able to tell an s13 motor from an s15 etc…
sr20det (90 - whatever K’s)
ka24de
ka24e
I know you can put an FJ20Det into an early model 200sx too as they came factory in the RSX
So how about guys like you John who are doing LS1 swap. That’s a ‘hot rod’, how would one insure that (for legitimacy reason only – if it were up to me I’d get the lowest insurance and/or no insurance if it was legit, I don’t care about it, nor believe in it).
the problem this poses is that if i kill somebody - will they still cover my liabilities? probably not.
that would fuck my entire life up pretty good if i got sued for 750,000 and had no insurance coverage just because i was a punk kid who wanted to put a big motor in my car
Spd-dmn in his infinite indernetdom has pointed out that our cars may be considered “Custom” rather then “Special Interest”. The website pointed him to this Custom Wheel Plan insurance.
What is the Custom Wheel Plan™?
Our Custom Wheel Plan™ is specifically designed to fill the insurance needs of Modified, Street Rod & Custom Automobile owners*.
Special Benefits include:
Plan is available for Modified, Street Rod & Custom vehicles used for hobby and/or collector car activities, and not used for regular transportation, which are 15 years old or older
No Claims Bonus - 5% per year - 15% Maximum
If you go to the brokers site for stouville Ont, it goes more into depth.
