Insurance woes

[superba1st]

Hi All,

I hear the insurance woes.  Knock on wood, but I haven't had to total out my
81 5KT with 330K+ on it.  Obviously, the blue book value, loosely for all
such, is far less than what the car is worth to me.  It's worth even less
than what California offered me to junk it.  I've had several heart to heart
talks with my insurance company, USAA.  One of the few good things I've done
is maintain them as my insurance company forever.

Here's the gist of what they told me.  The owner must establish with the
insurance company that your car is an exceptionally valued vehicle, a
collector classic possibly, and arrive at a mutually agreeable value up
front.  The insurance company will charge you a commensurate premium. I
didn't bother because the tests to do so are too stringent.  So, all of us
that don't do that are stuck with totalled out value at the time of an
accident.  The only other possible out is to get the adjustor that actually
inspects your car to mark it up for exceptional things that are easy to spot
like a new set of tires, upgraded wheels, etc.  But, as you can imagine,
that won't be much consolation.

Maybe there's some insurance experts who want to weigh in with advice on
self insuring ratios on property damage.  All of us have to maintain
liability to remain legal.

Cheers!

Jim Jordan