Whether you undertake most of the work yourself on your classic vehicle or send it to a specialist, you’ll be aware of the rising costs of replacement parts and labour. This is particularly pertinent if you happen to own a very limited, rare or even unique model. Or, indeed, if you have invested way more than the market value into your vehicle’s restoration or repair, a reality that most of us enthusiasts will be well aware of.
Our Clubs told us about their concerns around that exact scenario when we were busy designing your Club insurance scheme – and so, we created a solution.
What is reinstatement cover?
The product that we include with our Club schemes is referred to as reinstatement cover or, more commonly, as ‘uplift’. Many people either do not realise they need it or struggle to understand it, but in today’s inflationary environment, it is becoming increasingly essential.
Simply defined, Uplift Reinstatement Cover in motor insurance is an optional increase in the value of the insured vehicle to cover repair costs. It’s an allowance on top of the market or agreed value of up to 25% that allows for inflation, the extra costs of rare or hard-to-find parts, or, indeed, extra value applied in restoration, such as concours or modified paint finishes or materials.
The cover has its origins in property insurance, where insurers would have typically allowed for any inflation in property rebuild costs in a world where materials and labour fluctuate rapidly. Those fluctuations could occur during the period of the insurance or, in fact, during the period of time that it takes to complete a rebuild. This all ensured that the building sum insured was more than adequate for the resultant reality.
Why is reinstatement cover important for classic vehicles?
Now, such cover is unnecessary in ‘everyday’ car policies, as industry-agreed parts and labour rates are published and understood by both repairers and insurers. The materials are also clearly much lower in volume.
However, as we all know, the world of classic and treasured vehicles is far from being that straight-forward and so we, as specialists, want to make certain that we offer you not only the options to account for rising costs of repair but also that we have as many features within your Club insurance as possible to avoid vehicles being written off. We are, after all, focused on getting you back on the road as quickly as possible and also ensuring we don’t unnecessarily lose a valuable classic (whether a classic car or classic bike) from our roads.
Find out more
Find out more about insuring through one of our Club partners here or call us 0121 274 5400 to find out how we can insure your classic with reinstatement cover.
