The majority of people will never have to worry about buying collector car insurance. But if you do decide to either keep a car until it becomes collectible or purchase a collector car, it will be necessary to have it specially insured as a collector car.
New cars are rarely considered collectors.
Collector cars are almost always required to be about 30 years old or more. It takes time for a car to reach the collector car status. Normally, if the car is considered historical or antique, the insurance company will regard it as a collector car for insurance purposes.
You will usually have to provide pictures of the car to prove its value to the insurer.
The company may even ask you to take the car to the office of an agent for verification. To insure it, the car needs to be in relatively good condition and often needs to be running. For cars that are still being restored, you may have to negotiate a value with the insurance company until the restoration is completed.
Some insurance companies will require that the car be secured in a garage.
For higher-value collector cars, the insurance company will want information regarding how the car will be stored. Usually, they will require that the building housing the collector car be within certain distances of fire hydrants and fire departments for you to buy insurance for the car. When the value of the car or cars in your collection begins to rise into the millions of dollars, other security and fire protection devices and alarms may be required.
Most companies that insure collector cars will accept any vehicle that meets the age requirement.
Not all collector cars started life as a production vehicle. Some are built from car kits. Others were service vehicles like fire trucks. Motorcycles can be seen as collector vehicles. It is important that you can prove the age and a reasonable estimate of the car’s value to buy insurance easily. Do not expect this insurance to be cheap if the car has a high dollar value.
Expect the insurer to inspect your storage building if your car is worth over $500,000.
Because of the size of the risk on this type of collector vehicle, the insurance company will want to be able to verify that you are taking precautions to maintain the car in the best possible way. The garage must be secure and relatively fire proof. The company wants to be sure that you are as concerned about the safety of your collector car as they are.