Chubb targets flourishing luxury car market

Drivers who have shelled out for luxury status-symbol cars will naturally be a touch paranoid about everything from little scratches to complete write-offs.

A good motor insurance policy may provide some peace of mind, but up to now there have been no policies that are specifically tailored toward the protective owners of the kind of cars that inspire envious stares on the streets.

Chubb Insurance entered the motor insurance market yesterday with an insurance policy aimed at owners of cars worth €60,000 or more.

The company says there is increasing demand for such cover from brokers, high net worth individuals and its existing home insurance policyholders.

Over the past decade, sales of luxury makes of cars such as Mercedes, Jaguar, Porsche, BMW and Lexus have shot up 400 per cent.

Sales of Mercedes in Ireland have risen from just over 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 5,000 last year.

No Porsches were sold in Ireland in pre-Celtic Tiger days, according to Chubb, but last year 64 people in Ireland felt they just had to have one.

Barry O'Dwyer of Chubb Insurance says up to now the motor insurance market has been focused on offering the lowest premiums, often at the expense of fully comprehensive cover.

In some cases, drivers often sacrifice things like windscreen cover in order to cut down on costs.

At the higher value end of the market, scrimping on cover is not the order of the day, O'Dwyer says.

"I won't say it's not price-driven, but people want value for money, not cheap, cheap, cheap."

A driver aged around 40 with an intact no-claims bonus and a car worth about €80,000 when new can expect to pay an annual premium of roughly €900, but factors such as gender, where the driver lives and how the car is stored will also come into play.

"If someone has a Ferrari, we would prefer that they would drive it behind gates and into a garage."

After that, premiums will increase in tandem with the value of the vehicle and would cost several thousand for cars worth €250,000.

The Chubb policy, which is already on sale in the UK, includes comprehensive cover for anyone driving the insured car and also covers the insured driver when they drive any borrowed or hired car in Ireland or Europe.

The company will agree a value at the beginning of each policy year. The value of the car is thus "locked in", so that if it is written off or stolen this is the amount the owner receives, with no deduction.

"If the car is written off 364 days into the first year, we won't depreciate it," says O'Dwyer. No other insurer does this, he adds.

The policy, which will be distributed through insurance brokers, also includes automatic business-use cover.

The policy also has no limit on audio equipment claims, whereas many insurers impose a limit of €500.

Some insurers will insist that claimants take damaged cars to one of the garages stipulated by the company, but under the Chubb policy claimants can bring their cars to the specialist dealerships where they purchased them.

Chubb also requires drivers of cars worth more than €80,000 to fit tracking devices to their vehicles, which it says increases the likelihood of stolen cars being recovered sooner.