Admiral and Shuttle after conversion

[Steved55]

Hi - I bought my shuttle at the end of last year and after ringing round was pleased to find, because of its car classification, that I could add it to my multi car policy. We have slowly modified and converted her over the last six months and reluctantly we are parting with our t5 camper this weekend (hope I'm doing the right thing!) which because it was a panel van is insured with a plan.
I need to start cancelling/ changing insurance - does anyone have experience of Admiral on converted shuttles?
Thanks in advance
Steve

 

[dErZ]

I've always found that Admiral can only cover certain modifications. I had to leave Admiral as the list of mods I was going to do was too extensive for them to cover. I went to Aplan.

 

[Steved55]

Thanks@dErZ - I wondered if that would be the case - will give them a call later

 

[t6blo]

Admiral and Aviva wouldn’t insure my Kombi when I started talking about coilovers.
Got quotes from APlan and Brentacre - Brentacre were cheaper by about £50 even though the insurer was the same.

 

[Ozi]

NFU are worth a call. Very pleasantly surprised by them this year at renewal and seemed sensible on mods. They wanted a bit more evidence of what I’d done to the van for their underwriter than I found anywhere else. But then that due diligence on their part also resulted in the best quote as well, so can’t complain really.

 

[Paynewright]

And read the recent insurance thread - basically notify your insurers as soon as its gone!

 

[Steved55]

@Paynewright - yes I read that - sound advice

 

[Steved55]

I eventually got to speak to someone at Admiral today. Quite time consuming and frustrating. The young girl was adamant they could keep the shuttle on the same policy at no additional cost. When I checked my policy online later, it was listed that the van was lowered 40mm with extensive internal and external modifications, but no mention of campervan. I gave up on the phone last night and ended up on a chat call. After a lot of re advising who I was, I got passed through to someone who eventually confirmed the current market value of 22.5k - so they had accepted the mods but not upped the value!
He advised to discuss it with their claims dept and gave me a number - they had closed for the day!
So I will call again in the morning but it looks like I'm going to have to take the shuttle of the multi car and go to a specialist.
Is just me being an old fart or does anyone else get annoyed when you can't just pick up the phone and talk to someone knowledgeable?

 

[sparkywig]

I'm having terrible trouble with Admiral at the moment with my non-fault claim on the Sportline. I think I've spoken to every department and haven't progressed at all over the last 6 weeks.

 

[Salty Spuds]

I had a bad experience with Admiral about 10 years ago. Once bitten….

 

[Bav]

NFU are worth a call. Very pleasantly surprised by them this year at renewal and seemed sensible on mods. They wanted a bit more evidence of what I’d done to the van for their underwriter than I found anywhere else. But then that due diligence on their part also resulted in the best quote as well, so can’t complain really.

An informed underwriter is a happy underwriter

 

[Bav]

Is just me being an old fart or does anyone else get annoyed when you can't just pick up the phone and talk to someone knowledgeable?

Nope - not just you.

 

[Salty Spuds]

Nope - not just you.

I get annoyed when I go to buy a product, & know more about the product than the person trying to sell it to me.

 

[Bav]

I get annoyed when I go to buy a product, & know more about the product than the person trying to sell it to me.

Lots of insurance companies are way too happy to concentrate business knowledge in one or two [well paid] key employees, with the rest of their staff being [low paid] call centre personnel that know feck all about the industry they work in. It's a business model that generates lots of customer complaints, but, damn, they're good at producing charts and stats that shows what their customers are complaining about.

 

[t6blo]

Is just me being an old fart or does anyone else get annoyed when you can't just pick up the phone and talk to someone knowledgeable?

This is the exact reason you need to speak to Brentacre, APlan or one of the other modified van specialist brokers.
Mainstream internet quote based insurance companies just have no clue.