I was catching up some of the posts here and noted that one of us is dealing with an insurance claim on an e30 M3 which was damaged within a week of acquisition. Some of the commeters to the thread noted that the car could have been "Stated value" insured, and that would have eliminated the jousting with the regular car insurance provider. So, if you happen to have a really well cared for older, but not classic BMW, say a manual transmission 1998 e39 with original and perfect Individual paint color, some dinan mods, prophylactic replacement of known weak systems, full documentation and sub 75k miles, and you get T-boned, you are in a fight with Allstate/Geico/State Farm to get $8500 KBB value for the car. You could put together a detail and photo-rich advert for the same car on the Interwebz or on the club web site where some of us are a little more focused and interested in these cars than the "general public". There just might not be any other car out there with that combo of condition, color and mileage. You just need two of those folks to find that car and each of them be willing to fight (bid) over such a car and maybe find that you could sell the car for quite a bit more than the $8,500 crash-payout. I've thought about thisbefore, and I checked the Haggerty web site. There is no stated value insurance available for such a car from them. Where would you go to get such a stated value policy on a nice-for-its-age used car? I would willingly pay more and I'm already using the car up carefully, so the limited use of SV policy would be no burden. It is just a used car to the insurance market, but too nice to be just a used car to a few of us fanatics. Anyone out there solved this problem? I guess this is the orgin of the term "survivor". You keep it nice and hope it makes it to the point where it is recognized by a wider market. It is cared for and driven well after most would have swapped it out because you love it enough that no new iron gets you excited enough to sell it.
There are many classic auto insurers with different rules for usage, mileage and what constitutes a classic auto. Hagerty is too strict and just for show Queens. I was able to secure a very practical stated value full service policy on my 95' 318ic in 2011 from American Collectors Insurance.com out of Cherry Hill NJ. Prerequisite is mandatory garaging of the automobile when home. The mileage limit is very generous up to 5000 miles annually.
