Insurance for 1979 240D - no anti-lock brakes?
 

First, sorry if this is in the wrong forum - if mods want to move this to another area, please do so.

I asked my insurance company (Liberty Mutual) why the premium on the 1979 240D was $570/year as a pleasure car vs the $436/year for the 1991 300E as the daily driver.

Their reason was:
The 240D did not have anti-lock brakes or airbags.

Is this true?

I'm wondering if I could try insuring it as a "classic/antique" car as it is a 3rd car, driven rarely, now that I have the 300E for work and the truck as a second car.
The truck, btw, is $400/year as a pleasure car.

Answer
 

IMO it is time to go shopping.

Their answer is insulting garbage.

This technology did not exist when the vehicle was manufactured.

The vehicle qualifies as antique or classic.

They do not want your business.

They don't want your car on the road, it will demolish modern plastic cars and keep going.


If this is only a pleasure car.
The best insurance is Hagerty Insurance


.

I do not know exactly what my inssurance company charges for the 240D. I have about 5 cars on the policy. They do ask about anti-lock brakes, alarms etc. for all the vehicles. My '81 240D is a daily driver. I will say that they send me a notice that mine qualifies for classic inssurance.
I do have one car, a '75 Bricklin, on classic or collector insurance. It is through Hagerty. I think $225 for this year. Only stipulation is it has to be in a lockable garage and not a daily driver. No miliage restricition or restriction on night time driving. I did have to state its value.
Tom

X3 on using Hagerty if the car isn't your daily driver. I have both of my W123's on a Hagerty policy and I think I pay around $250 per year for BOTH.

Yeah I would look into Hagerty if the 240d is indeed a weekend car.

Why is your insurance so high? where do you live? I think I only pay $60 per 6 months (or 12 not sure) for my cars.

I am not aware mb ever offered abs on us spec one twenty three cars but a euro eighty three three hundred d I parted out had it.

you can also get a reduced mileage policy from your insurance co.

it's not that they charge more to penalize the no antilock brakes, it's that they give discounts for car features that reduce crash potential.

discounts are there for:
ABS,
SRS,
DRL, and I've sure there are others...

in 79, none of these features were available... on ANY car, much less a budget diesel.

you could tell the insurance company that the seatbelts are autoretracting pre SRS saftey... it might qualify.

fyi, your 91300E is not getting all the discounts they offer... you don't have daytime Running Lights...

Should read your policy. May be a hobby or collector type policy where daily driving basically Is not covered. That is very cheap today for a regular type policy. Or maybe you know it is already. This note was a just in case scenario.

In conversation with a friend who has Hagerty (I have Grundy) Insurance, it appears Hagerty is much more liberal on the amount of use your "antique" can have.

I've not changed because I don't use the 5 cars I have on the antique policy much. But Grundy kind of cheesed me the other day when they told me that they raised the rates on all their insured cars that had a stated value of less than 20K dollars. Might be the final straw for me to change over to Hagerty.

Jim

If you have a "stated value" policy, I would recommend that you investigate the advantages of an "agreed value" arrangement instead.

heh, for giggles, I did a quote on my 190... 238/year... I like the included FLATBED GUARANTEED roadside assistance... $50 gas delevery... unlimited calls... um... I'd never need to pay for fuel again!

you got me worried now! these are the stats, tell me what you think

87 190d
Bodily Injury Liability $100k/$300k $37.70every six months
Property Damage Liability $50k $31.50

83 300d
Bodily Injury Liability $100k/$300k $35.40 every six months
Property Damage Liability $50k $29.50

that's it. I declined all the other coverage. What do you think?

Poor use of terms.

Yes, I have "agreed value" on my antique cars through Grundy.
Only two were over the 20K threshold, the other three are below.

Jim

I'm not a insurance expert, but here in Texas we have lots of uninsured/underinsured drivers. I have uninsured/underinsured added to my plan.

Insurance companies are weird how they structure rates.

I have an 89 work van on my family policy with USAA. Abou 1k a year for 5 cars, one full coverage. I'm working on the 89 van and bought a 93 exact same model van, no additional safety bits past some braces underneath. I put the 89 on storage insurance. Adding a 6th vehicle and keeping the 5th insured actually reduced my rates by 150 dollars a year.