Your heart's racing about
the prospect of buying a Mercedes or another one of the most expensive
cars on the market. But, whoa, your ticker had better slow down long
enough for you to consider insurance as part of the equation.
State Farm, Mercury and
other carriers admit that they don't keep lists of the 10 most
expensive vehicles to insure. However, at the behest of Insure.com,
Compain-Romero and Mercury President George Joseph rattled off some car
names you'd associate with many of those rankings:
- Mercedes S600 Sedan
- Rolls-Royce
- Porsche 911 Turbo
- Lamborghini
- Aston Martin DB5
- Bentley Mulliner Azure two-door convertible
- Ferrari 360 Spider
- Jaguar XJR
- Maserati
- Hummer
- BMW Roadster
California auto insurance
specialty market Mercury covers some high-end cars. "We insure a number
of Rolls-Royces, and I would think that they'd be on any top 10 list of
most expensive automobiles to insure," said George Joseph, at Mercury
headquarters in Los Angeles.
Mercury's Ken
Kitzmiller confirmed that his company insures other limited production
vehicles such as Laborghinis. "The more limited the production of the
car, the higher the parts and repair costs and the insurance coverage
is priced accordingly," said Kitzmiller, vice president of
underwriting.
Kitzmiller's perspective
gets reinforcement from the Nevada Insurance Council spokeswoman Sharon
Rorman. "While liability insurance is based on the driver,
comprehensive and collision coverage will be much more expensive with a
high end car such as a Porsche, Ferraris and Lamborghinis," points out
Rorman.
There's more to insurance cost
than the type of car itself. "Premiums are based not only the make and
model of the vehicle, but the driver himself," says Don Lukenbill,
spokesman for the American Agents Alliance in Pasadena, Calif.
"Underwriters
consider where a driver lives, his or her safety record, years of
experience, annual miles driven, and other variables," Lukenbill
explains.
Taking Lukenbill's point one step
further is Fireman's Fund executive Andy Webster. "If you have three
speeding tickets and drive a Chevy Corvette, you're going to pay a lot
for insurance, no matter which way you turn". Webster is Fireman's Fund
automobile program manager, Personal Insurance segment, at corporate
headquarters in Novato, Calif.
"And on top
of that," noted Webster, "you'll likely have to go to a nonstandard
market for coverage that likely won't be as broad as that of a standard
market like our company offers."
Lastly, a
fundamental piece of insurance advice comes from Loretta Worters,
spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute in New York. Says
Worters: "Sports cars, high performance vehicles and SUVs are generally
more expensive to insure than sedans. And newer cars will generally be
more expensive than older cars. Consider the 'profile' of a car before
you purchase it. If you can't afford the insurance, you can't afford
the car."
