Electric conversion car insurance - Not
 

JC Taylor will not insure electric conversions - if they are not pretty enough.

My insurance agent can get it insured "if" it will go over 55 mph. (Not with 72v)

Hagerty will not insure - period!

How are you guys doing it? If I lie about the modification, no problem. Being punished for telling the truth?

Any suggestions?

Geico makes you fill out a modification form, but I dont own an ev. :eek:

My motorycle a total custom build. My insurance carrier (AAA) would not insure it at all. I insure with Progressive.

My approach wasn't to lie, so much as to withhold. Thankfully I was never in a wreck.

I was in an accident that was the other guys fault. The insurance adjuster asked me what the custom parts cost and was just going to pay me the difference and I do the labor. His insurance turned out to drag their feet to the point the body shop was going to impound my car and auction it off. I got my insurance involved to fix it. They reimburse me for receipts as I replaced my custom parts, but I was out the labor and had to do it myself.

Here in Ontario, I ran into a few dead ends cold-calling various companies direct. Then I went to a broker, explained the situation, and within a few days had a policy quote that seemed fair to me.

Probably cost a bit more (the broker has to get paid) but it was worth it. And worth it to the broker, too... she got the business for my ICE car too.

If you fib a little, or a lot, or at all, you effectively nullify your insurance in the event that you ever really need it.

It sucks, but that's how it is.

Your insurance company is not your friend. They will not bend the rules to help you out of a tight spot, no matter how warm and fuzzy their commercials are.


They dream, (and train their claims people) of finding ways to deny your claim.

Progressive is the only company that I found that would insure any of my electric vehicles, stock electric car, home converted electric motorcycle.

Both should have been able to be insured by Hagarty, but they mailed me back the check after the local agent said it was good to go.... twice.

Any one have an electric convert on USAA?

I'm going to add a couple of batteries. I can get 53mph out of my 72 volts - 4000 lb car. So two more batteries should get me over 55 mph which is the requirement for Progressive. Local agent will be hooking me up with them once I get the 55mph.

Being able to exceed 55mph sounds like a good idea to me.

That's tooo funny Paul. LOL!

Something new to think about. I'm going to call USAA and ask them if I should modify an existing car or construct one from parts and what the difference is.

I have Liberty Mutual and they have no problems insuring my Civic EV and my Solectria Force.

I'm insured with AAA in California. They had no problem with liability, but wouldn't do comp & collision.

Over here in Australia we enquired about getting the EV insured.
They will insure it, but they will only insure it to the market value of the pre-converted vehicle.
Seeing as my donor vehicle cost $300 and the conversion will be around $9000 i can see a bit of a problem replacing it with the cash the insurer is willing to give. :(
The market value may be a bit more than the $300 but not a lot more.
That was just one insurer, we haven't shopped around to see if that is the same for all of them

I am told by the guy that inspected my car (92 MX6) before I started my EV conversion that it is quite common here (Canada) for hot-rodders to declare a replacement value for the vehicle when they are done and pay insurance based on that. The liability and registration costs do not appear to change.

I may go to a broker to see if there are options.

When (if?) I get it rolling I will report back ... no sense insuring the car until I find out how much I actually put into it.

Ive got AAA in Nevada which is basically CA AAA. They didn't care about anything except legal title.. I suspect it depends on office/ agent