mx5cartalk.com

I've been looking around for comprehensive insurance for my NA6. I've checked the main ones like AAMI, YOUI, Budget, Bingle & RACV. Almost all of them put the value south of $5k (most start off around $4k and allow you to lift it).

Budget Insurance on the other hand are much cheaper than the others (like 30% cheaper) and the disclaimer on market value says

Market Value
Market value is the reasonable cost to replace your vehicle with one of the same make, model, age and condition as your vehicle at the time of the loss or damage. It does not include any allowance for warranty, stamp duty, or transfer costs.
We are not experts on car value. However, based on the dealer guide, we estimate your car model (including any factory options or accessories you have listed) has a value range today of $5350 to $7850 depending upon its condition.

I know it is open to interpretation but the $5350-$7850 range is far above what the others rate it whilst they are also much cheaper...Any catch? The excess is one of the lowest @ $600 as well.

Their premium is $499.

Most of the others were around $700-$800+.

Is market value something that can be disputed in the event of an accident or the vehicle being stolen?

FYI I am a 28 year old male with no accident history, insuring the car for less than 5,000km a year and garaged in a fairly dodgy suburb of Vic. The car is a 1990 NA6 hardtop with no options or after market modifications.

What is everyone else paying and with whom?

Ask for a quote on 'agreed value' and see what they say - I have to re-negotiate for my NA tomorrow as not happy with what they have dropped it to

I'm sure they think it's a basic '89 MX5 - not so!

I pay for Shannons. Highly modified na8 - 14k value. About 60 per month with a cams discount. It's expensive but that's because of the modifications.

Search budget insurance reviews. For memory they have a very poor record and have a tendency not to pay out.


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Like sailaholic I'm with Shannon's on an agreed value policy. I sent Shannon's a list of my mods they proposed a value I agreed nice and simple. Shannon's have the options of calling it limited usage as well as a few other choices, this can reduce your premium as well as the CAMS discount.

Highly modified NB, all mods recorded on the policy, with Shannon's for about $50 p/month, based on an agreed value.

Shannons seem quite cheap. Punched my details into the system, see what they come back with.

Might be worth looking into Just Car Insurance too. They are often quite cheap, & you can decrease the premium by increasing the excess or vice versa. But in the advent of a claim, you the owner have to get the car looked over at crash repairers for 3 quotes to supply the insurer for the repair payout. Well was the case some years back anyway.

sailaholic wrote:Search budget insurance reviews. For memory they have a very poor record and have a tendency not to pay out.

I will give you a review on Budget.

My wife (now ex but not for that reason) backed into a parked car. totally her fault. About $5k damage in total for both cars. Called and made a claim. Absolutely brilliant. Gave us names of repairers in our area who deal with budget and said we could get quotes from our own as well if we wanted to. One in their list was probably one of the most reputable here so we just went with that. No hassle, no fuss. Yes she rating wet up, as did her premium for the following 3 years (I think) but that is what you pay for.

So I think you get what you pay for. Budget will be by the book and I doubt they would even look at a modified car. They are cheap for a reason, but I don't think their service for sales or claims is cheap. We took the car in for repairs and picked it up when it was done. Budget took the excess from the card we paid the policy with. Simples.

Would I insure with them based on our experience. Yes. In fact my Mazda 2 is with them now. But I use Shannons for the garage toy.

you cant really compare with others...unless they are the same age,live in the same area and the car is in the same condition/mods and the excess amount is the same.
all these things impact on the premium.
i am with AAMI and used the online quote system to vary value and the excess amount.
It can range between $225 for the lowest value and highest excess, to $838 for highest value and the lowest excess.

Shannons here - about $400 for an NA8.

Know someone with an MX5 that was insured with Budget Direct back in mid 2000s. Soft-top was cut to gain access to the vehicle while in secure parking. Budget Direct were fine to deal with & paid out no problems at all, but didn't invite them to renew insurance come renewal time as the vehicle was still being parked in the same place. However, Budget said they would be happy to invite renewal of insurance if the vehicle was parked elsewhere, thereby lessening the chance of another claim. To keep premiums low, Budget Direct are very risk averse.

At the time Budget Direct also charged an admin fee of about $50 for the slightest change in relation to your policy. This might have changed, but it's something to check.

The proof of the puddin' is when you make a claim...cant fault Shannons after two!

I'm with AAMI (well, until tomorrow when my Shannons policy starts)

My GF has her MX5 with Shannons.

Both have had to make claims at some stage.


One of mine was a not-at-fault claim (retard on a phone ran into the back of me)
AAMI service was great, easy claim etc. I did have issues with one call centre operator who insisted I needed the other guy's name, address, licence number, rego, etc..... the next operator said "no, all we need is his name and rego, we contact vicroads for the rest"

The other was an at fault claim, service was good, albeit a little inflexible.
The car was sent to the repairer of their choice, who did a good enough job, but was quite far away and took forever.

Also AAMI wouldn't cover my car with mods.



Shannons will cost be about $300pa more than AAMI, BUT they cover my mods, insure the car for more, choice of repairer, and my excess is only $500 as opposed to the $1,700 or so it was with AAMI (my fault, I chose to up my excess to reduce my premium)

I pay $140.69 per month with Shannons for 2 cars and 1 x trailer (MX5/Trailer at agreed value and Amarok at market value).

Also have house/contents with Shannons and the CAMS discount.

Here's a partly related rant. One of the more annoying "lazy taxes" around is the insurance industry practice of punishing loyalty - if you renew a policy without at least contacting your insurer for a discount they will jack up the premium a lot. Changing insurers annually costs a lot of time in form-filling so I was pleased to discover that you could get a cheaper quote from a competitor and get your current insurer to drop their premium to compete. Or even, in the case of AAMI at least, buy a new policy, identical to the renewal, for $50 less. I got this response to my query about this:

"Regarding the online quoting system, it is no secret we discount around $50 off the standard premium. This is a standard practice with many insurance companies in trying to compete with the online market, as well as trying to obtain new business at the same time for the first year of their policy. If we didn't have this option we would be having people ask why not?
Many customers choose to cancel at the end of each policy and start a new policy and receive the online discount."
Later in the correspondence I was told that I'd get a $20 gift voucher if I had no claims for four years - 10% back on a $50 for four years ripoff didn't seem too good a deal to me!

Just why an industry that is based so much on trust abuses customer loyalty is something for people smarter than me to figure out. And, because I want to trust my insurer, after this "no secret" email (they hadn't let me in to the secret over many years of misguided loyalty from me), I progressively shifted all my insurances away from AAMI. Because I am even more boring an old fart than this rant would suggest, I've made no claims on household insurance for 20 years and no at-fault car insurance claims for about the same, so this has cost them some profitable business.

So my recommendations: 1. shop around annually 2. don't be loyal 3. avoid AAMI who seem to be even more cynical than their competitors

Shannons