3/6/16 – 3/12/16
Interesting week. It started out with a trip with Mark to the Literature and Toy Show Swap Meet in Anaheim. It was really too early for me to go, but Mark needed some parts, and I thought it would be a good introduction to the world I was about to enter. Obviously, I had no idea what I was looking at. Well, maybe I was a little more knowledgeable than that, but not by much. Mark kept talking about getting a set of cookie cutters. I wondered why anyone would sell cookie cutters at a car parts swap meet, but I didn’t say anything. A few minutes later I learned that cookie cutters are simple, less expensive wheels that came on Porsche 911s beginning in 1973, as an alternative to the more expensive Fuchs wheels. It turned out that there was a set for sale, but they were sold a few minutes earlier. We walked around some more, and Mark bought some other parts. I bought an old Parts and Technical Reference Catalog for 911s. I know I need it, but every time I open it, more of the spine breaks. I hope this is not an omen.
I started thinking about risk of loss this week. Not the loss of money because I overpaid for the car or because it will cost me more to fix than I could ever sell it for, but the literal risk of loss of the car while it is in New York and while it is being shipped to me and while it is in my garage in California. Just as I was thinking about this, Mark called and, out of the blue, said I needed to be thinking about insurance. This opened a pretty large can of worms.
The 1977 Porsche Targa is a collector car and needs specialty insurance. The kind to get is Agreed or Guaranteed Value, which pays the agreed, non-depreciated, value in case of a loss. The first thing I needed for the insurance policy was the VIN number. I got it and, being the curious sort, I looked on line for how to decode it. It turns out that the VIN on the car precedes the current format; hence, it was a lot shorter. I looked up the VIN coding and could easily determine that my car is a 1977 Targa S and that it is car 1,522 our of 2,747 Targa S’s made in 1977.
Armed with the VIN, I called my main insurance carrier to see if they offered insurance on collector cars. They did, through American Collector. I called them and discussed their policy options and my needs. The good news was that the liability limits they offered matched the liability limits on my current auto policy, which meant that I had no gaps in coverage before my umbrella policy kicked in. The bad news was that they had issues with covering the car before it was in California. In fact, they did not want to cover it at all as it made its way out here. After some negotiating, they agreed to cover the car in transit but at a 20% deductible. This was unacceptable to me so I called Hagerty, which is the biggest player in this market. The good news was that Hagerty would cover the car as it made its way here. The bad news was that they did not offer a policy that matched my liability limits, and it left me with a sizeable gap in my coverage on my umbrella policy. This was even more unacceptable.
So what did I do? I wish I could say I took the American Collector insurance policy because I would have been cheaper and easier, but I didn’t. I opted for the Hagerty policy. Then I called my normal insurance carrier and changed my liability limits on my auto, homeowners and umbrella policies so that they would match the limits on the Hagerty policy. It cost more this way, but the other good news is that I have an unlimited number of tows included with the Hagerty policy. I hope I do not have to use them.