THSCC Forums

Got a response. It's not all good news, but it's practical. If nothing else it's good to know that someone in the business is thinking rationally about these things. To me the Reader's Digest version is: Race cars aren't insured. So street cars aren't insured while being raced.

I do still believe that my agent would be opposed to the insurer dropping me. I have 5 cars, a motorcycle, a trailer, my house, and jewelry insured with him. He wouldn't give me up without a fight Things can change though.

This is what gets me. Mike has hit the nail on the head. Autocrossers, as a whole (and even more so, road racers), are exactly the people that insurers WANT to do business with. We have income, and it's disposable to say the least.

Thanks for posting. Unfortunately it contradicts most of what I recommended. Oh well, it's worked for me!

The main reason I keep collision & comp on my car is because I sure as hell want it covered if something happens while I'm towing, or while parked overnight at events.

I do still believe that my agent would be opposed to the insurer dropping me. I have 5 cars, a motorcycle, a trailer, my house, and jewelry insured with him. He wouldn't give me up without a fight Things can change though.

I still refuse to hide. If my insurance company doesn't like what I do, I will find another one. I agree with the advice, though, in that I won't be going around advertising the fact to my insurer.

From: Peter Lyon [PLyon@scca.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 6:48 PM
To: kwh29@bellsouth.net
Cc: Howard Duncan; Tasha Goodale
Subject: RE: Insurance coverage on dual-purpose vehicles (street/solo2)

Kevin:

This topic comes up every once in awhile, but I believe the scope of it is not nearly as large as "SCCA lore" would have it.

First, I find the thought of "activist agents" scoping out Solo II events as you outline downright unbelievable if not laugable. Trust me, agents have bigger fish to fry. Also, the related urban myth of agents pulling up event results and trying to match them up to their insureds is in my estimation just that, a myth.

There have been maybe 5 instances reported to me over the years where Soloists were upside down with their insurance carriers. One instance involved taking the car into a insurance carrier claim center for body damage estimates and the company adjuster noting a rollcage and magentic decals. Another instance involved members pursuing mechanical warranty claims and the insurers finding out or claiming that the vehicle was "raced". Others involved members seeking insurance coverage for body damage incurred during an event.

In the above situations, you can expect the insurance carrier to try to invoke a racing or competition policy exclusion. In prior years, some and certainly not all polices had "racing" exclusions. Now most of the policies have added exclusions and/or broadened their exclusions to include "competitions". Trying to "educate" the carriers in my estimation and experience is a waste of time and counter-productive. The bottom line is that carriers can within certain limits cancel or non-renew who they want. So the best way to go is to maintain a low-profile. That doesn't mean you lie on an application. But you certainly don't volunteer information on autocross activities or contact the carrier to try to "educate" them.

I always try to assist members who may have this and other insurance issues. I spent a lot of time and effort several years ago assisting a Texas member who took his cancellation as far as he could with the Texas Insurance Department and other avenues. The bottom line is he lost. And I think that is pretty much how other challenges would go unless you can prove that the carrier violated state insurance laws re: non-renewal or cancellation. The carriers again have broad lattitude regarding the exposures that they underwrite. Regardless, I will assist any member with this problem.

I continue to monitor this situation and if it got to the point where it becomes a verifiable significant problem, then SCCA may have to take a more involved role. At this point, however, I think we have more to lose than gain by publicizing the issue and confronting carriers. Regardless, I would like to be kept informed of verified instances of cancellation and/or non-renewal so I can monitor the situation.

Hope this helps. I'm copying Howard Duncan and tasha Goodale for their edification also and would suggest to them it might be valuable to forward onto the SEB also.

Thanks for bringing this up. Let me know if you have further questions.

Pete

-----Original Message-----
From: kwh29@bellsouth.net [mailto:kwh29@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Wed 4/7/2004 1:44 PM
To: Peter Lyon
Cc:
Subject: Insurance coverage on dual-purpose vehicles (street/solo2)



Pete,

There has been a large amount of information spreading on the Internet lately regarding insurance coverage of dual-use (street and soloii) cars. There have been rumors and at least two confirmed cases of insurers dropping _all_ coverage on a vehicle when they discovered that the vehicle was used in solo2 "racing" events. These policies were supposedly dropped after some activist agent took photos of vehicles at an event and cross-referenced the license plates against their policy information. They supposedly weren't dropped after a claim.

When reading the solo rulebook it is clear that there was a large amount of thought put into the definition of a solo2 event to ensure that solo2 avoided some legal definition of racing, presumably to avoid having to purchase special coverage for simple solo2 events. My primary question for you is does the SCCA assist members in explaining to insurers just what solo2 is and why it is not racing?

My secondary question is does the SCCA assist/defend its members after an insurer drops them for participating in SCCA Solo2 events?

Best regards,
--Kevin Hoff
Member #RXXXXXX
CCR #067

The data that THSCC keeps about or registration at events that concerns me is using our driver's license # to identify us in registering. Data mining results would be near useless IMHO since it's likely there are a number of people in any given area with the same name, making verification legally iffy. But your driver's license # is a positive identifier. I'd suspect that our registration database is not particularly highly secured or encripted, and/or using the driver's license # is not really the only identifier that could be used as a reference. Our own names could be used (how many duplicate names do we have with the exception of father/sons that could be separated by using Jr, III, etc), or a cookie sent with the first registration, or VMSC is now using a database requiring you to register a user name and password to save rentering the details.

I'd suspect that our registration database is not particularly highly secured or encripted, .

Just so everyone will know who I am , I will be running in STS in danville in a 3 digit car.