Opinion: insurers must end farce of car modification price hikes

A sticker on your car window is not a modification and shouldn’t make your car cover more costly.

When an insurer works out your car insurance quote, there are plenty of factors at play.

Essentially it all comes down to how likely you are to have to make a claim ‒ the more ‘risky’ you are, the higher the price you’ll end up paying for cover. 

So if you live in an area renowned for car break-ins, the price is going to be higher than if you can park the car every night somewhere secure.

Similarly, if you are a younger driver, statistics aren’t your friend ‒ the fact that accident rates are higher among those under the age of 21 means that you’ll have to dig deep to pay for your cover.

Car modifications are also an important ingredient when it comes to pricing up your policy, but the varying approaches taken by some insurers towards what actually constitutes a modification can be utterly farcical.

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What’s a modification?

A new study by motoring site Auto Express, together with the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA), dug into the issue and found that there are two distinct definitions for what insurers class as being a modification to a car.

Some insurers will regard something as a modification only you have the changed the vehicle in some way since it left the manufacturer.

However, other insurers suggest that a car has been modified if there has been “any alteration to the manufacturers’ standard specification” including any optional extras fitted to the car when it’s new by the manufacturer.

In other words, depending on the insurer, some will view things like a panoramic sunroof or metallic paint as being a modification that you need to inform the insurer about.

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I’m forever blowing bubbles ‒ just don’t tell anyone

Another fascinating nugget thrown up by the investigation is the idea that certain stickers that you might add to your car window are classed as a modification too.

This is less about those that warn of a ‘Princess behind the wheel’ or a baby on board, and more for those people that choose to share their support of a specific sports team or a political view.

And according to Auto Express and BIBA’s research, if you have one of those stickers on your car, then you should expect to pay more for your insurance.

The argument goes that sharing anything that could be seen as slightly controversial is inviting trouble from vandals.

Essentially, if I have a West Ham sticker on my car, given the fact I live in an area with a high proportion of Tottenham fans, I’m asking for it and so will need to pay more for my car insurance.

Auto Express also cited a case of a driver who was told that the paint protection he had applied to his car was deemed a modification, with the insurer in question refusing to renew his policy.

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Don’t provoke a National Trust member

This strikes me as absolutely daft – and where does it end?

I’ve got an English Heritage sticker in the front windscreen, is there a danger that this will provoke some National Trust hooligans into giving my car a shoeing? 

We used to have a toy lion stuck on one of the windows of the mascot from the 2006 World Cup. 

Could that upset someone, an animals’ rights activist for example, who would be so enraged that they would take a crowbar to my car?

Focusing on what’s really important

I don’t doubt that adding some fancy modifications to a car will make it a bigger target for thieves, just as I don’t doubt that an expensive car brings with it costly cover given the comparatively larger sums needed to fix it in the event of a claim.

Similarly, the growth of telematics can only be a good thing in my view, with drivers benefitting from being viewed as an individual and having a policy priced on what they are really like as drivers, rather than paying the price for others who just happen to fall within the same demographic.

But an insurer can’t expect us to tell them absolutely everything about our lives ‒ and vehicles ‒ on the off chance it might alter the odds of needing to make a claim.

Insurers don’t ask about your relationship with your neighbours, but I’ve no doubt there are plenty of cases each year where a car is keyed or the tyres let down as a result of a neighbourly dispute. 

Anyone can be the victim of car vandalism at any time, irrespective of whether they have a sports team sticker in the window or not. We pay enough for our car insurance already, without insurers finding bizarre new reasons to crank it up a bit more.

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