getinsurancequotes.ca
getinsurancequotes.ca
If you’ve ever wanted to customize your car to better reflect your personality and style, you might want to think twice. Many changes that you make to your vehicle may affect your car insurance rate.
The most popular changes people make to their cars include getting customized paint jobs, installing alloy wheels, new stereo systems, and custom rims and tires. Other common changes include having windows tinted, interiors redone, and having engines modified for more power.
Usually, the types of modifications mentioned above can be quite expensive. Certain modifications can add up to thousands of dollars to have done, and in terms of insurance, can end up costing you even more than you bargained for.
All car insurance rates are based on factory-built stock vehicles. Whenever you alter your vehicle from factory stock, you will have to let your insurance company know of the changes. Remember that if you don’t report your modifications you may not be able to have those items covered if you ever have to submit a claim.
Every insurance company has different rules regarding how they deal with car modifications and customizations. Below are a few possible scenarios that show how different car modifications may affect your car insurance premium:
Customizations that are under a combined value of $1500 such as a new stereo, window tinting, new hub caps and rims will need to be disclosed to your insurance company, but typically will not affect your insurance premium.
Non-performance enhancing customizations that exceed a combined value of $1500 such as high-end stereo systems, alloy wheels and rims, tinting, upholstery, and custom paint jobs will need to be disclosed to your insurance company. While these types of modifications don’t affect the performance of your car, they make your car more attractive to thieves and increase the value of your vehicle, which typically will impact your insurance premium.
Modifications or add-ons like performance intakes, turbo kits, nitrous oxide systems, performance exhaust and mufflers, vehicle lowering, and rebuilt chassis (to name just a few) all alter a vehicle’s performance. Due to modifications like these, a car cannot be rated the same as a non-modified factory-built stock vehicle. These types of modifications will definitely affect your insurance coverage and potentially will affect your coverage.
Before you make any changes to your vehicle, you will want to find out how much the changes may in fact end up costing you. You’ll want to make sure you consider not only the actual retail cost of your modifications, but the impact it will have on your insurance rate as well. It’s also a good idea to remember that any performance enhances modifications made to your vehicle will make it tougher to insure.
If you really have your heart set on personalizing your wheels, you might want to stick to non-performance enhancing modifications, so not only will they be less expensive to install, but will hopefully result in cheaper car insurance costs as well.
