Do you declare your mods?

[Mr_Sukebe]

With my MX5, very much declared absolutely everything.

 

[kindai]

Peace of mind are the keys words for sure

Peace of mind only exists if they agree to replace the mods in case of a write off.

A number of policy holders over the years over various companies have fallen foul of this for not reading the small print.

 

[theone8181]

As always, it depends. The test is always one of reasonableness - could or should a layperson reasonably have known?

Misrepresentation and non-disclosure

Information for financial businesses about how we deal with complaints about misrepresentation and non-disclosure.

www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

The underpinning legislation basically says that if a reasonable consumer would have known (in this case about the modifications) then you've misrepresented things even if YOU didn't know. In other words, if you're stupid or ignorant it doesn't matter In the case of your lowering kit, the courts would likely look at a photograph of your car vs a photograph of a standard car and assess if a layperson would have noticed the difference. Clearly engine mounts are unlikely to meet the bar but lowering or other visual mods might well do. Similarly with things like exhausts - completely obvious to a layperson if an exhaust modification has been made in most cases. In your specific case where you have knowingly misrepresented things then you're likely to come unstuck - they aren't stupid, they have engineers and other investigators specifically to find out things like this.

Outcome wise, if they can demonstrate that without the misrepresentation (ie everything presented exactly as it is in reality) they wouldn't have insured you they would be able to avoid the claim (save for anything 3rd party where payout is mandatory under the RTA, however they may well seek damages from you in that instance!). If they would simply have charged you more then they would be able to reduce the payout by the proportion of the new premium vs what you had paid eg if your premium was £1000 and the all-mods-declared premium would have been £2000 then they would only need to pay 50% of the claim.

Interesting you mention the height, it was already low to start with and I think you'd only notice the difference if 2 were side by side. It's not like going from the height of a disco to the height of a Ferrari as that would be pretty obvious. If you as the common layperson, they probably don't even know how top up screenwash . A quick Google says its either 10 or 30mm. I think it was 10 as I don't remember it looking different, although it was 10 years ago.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

My Baja is registered as a kit car and I sent Flux photos.

Not changed anything for a while, but wouldn't tell them if I'd changed something cosmetic. Just send updated photos the next year (if it was noticeable).

 

[Resident]

When I last renewed my classic with A-Plan, the lady I spoke to basically said that unless a mod add's power over factory output, most mods listed would simply be added as a note on their system and would basically have no impact on the price. Ive added quite a few upgrades/replacement aftermarket parts but none of them add power so the whole list got added as a note.

It's similar with my policy with Flux for my modified ST170.

Cosmetic mods are just listed but make no difference and since I use the online portal to make the changes then no fees

Performance mods, as long as I don't add more than 25% of the car's standard power then perf mods don't incur an increase either.