I have a stock 1990 Eunos V-Special except a Cat 1 alarm/mobilizer. ~50k miles, the only rust I’m aware of is the traditional battery aura that should clean up. No issues that I’m aware of other than a handful of minor cosmetic, most of which are DIY-able and I’m working through as a “factory setting” car.
Closest I have to a valuation is Hagerty’s automated one for a standard 1990 MX5 in various conditions, which gives £3900 Good to £6700 Excellent. I have used £4000-£5000 for the sake of quoting around. My current insurer is Aviva, who were interestingly also the only website I’ve ever used which deduce it’s a V-Special from the registration number, so no other quotes have that detail yet for the sake of simplifying comparisons.
I want to drive it regularly or solely, my mileage would be low but below 5000 is not realistic. I have mostly quoted is as my sole vehicle, owning an econobox is an option and I still have my old one at the moment, but the insurance, tax, MOT, I’m skeptical it will help price-wise.
The crux of the problem is that most or all specialist insurers have a 5000-mile mark of appropriateness. Some will allow you to go higher, but the price increase is so disproportionate that it may as well be a cap. I feel the underlying problem is that specialist insurers use the term classic in the umbrella sense of “It belongs in a museum” rather than the sense of “Rumours by Fleetwood Mac”. I think most people would consider a MK1 the latter, certainly given it’s famous economy and robustness.
Specialist insurers are also potted with individual nuances, ones I’ve noticed so far which I’m going to include here because I wish I had found such a thing when I was Googling.
- - Performance Direct require an overnight locked garage (which is possible, but not until some hefty organisation) and I didn't find out until reading the policy document itself.
- Adrian Flux I have multiple problems with, but pragmatically a £40-£50 charge for valuation and a black box to be especially Johnny-on-the-spot about your mileage (you can raise the estimate you gave them, but they were unable to say if there was a charge to do so, and were already by far the most expensive anyway so I have no faith in it as a viable option).
- Footman James do not accept a car club discount until you've already been a member for more than one year. I appreciate they prefer to know the membership is meaningful, but that was unexpected.
- Lancaster will only accept a No Claims Bonus history if it was on a similar car, so mine would be back to 0 years.
- Admiral raised their minimum age for classics to 35 years, Hagerty is Aviva's partner or what-have-you but allow nothing over 5000 miles, various others are like these two.
With the exception of an agreed value I’d just stay with Aviva. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been with them a while, but changes are immediate, free, and easy to do online. I can add 1000 miles for a pound or two whenever I want, they don’t seem to mind where I keep it or even if it’s driven to single or multiple places of business. The price is good and I’ve had no issues with dramatic rises at renewal time… so far.
Their values are organized by brackets, the first being anywhere up to £5000. I called and asked them what I’d get for a non-agreed value and, from their end they have no value set whatsoever. It’s a nominal pound with an allowance up to the £5000. It all goes through the claims line, try them. So I tried asking them. They were very pleasant, if slightly non-plussed by my asking, and we had a trial run of a theoretical claim. They said they used valuers called Glass and one or two others, none of which currently have any established valuation for a 1990 MK1 Eunos. I am guessing they will not do so again any time soon. Since this is the case, they would look through classifieds for something similar to the lost vehicle try and work it out. Presumably that means a seasonal fluctation would come into play. I asked if they would account for condition if I had photos and so on, and without promising they seemed fairly sure that would be the case.
The take-away seems to be that and if I’m likely to go exceed 5000 miles it’ll be at least £400 extra realistically, much higher. And my best case is to ignore the specialists, treat the saving as pseudo-self-insurance, and hope for amiability in the worst case.