Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

UK Roadster insurance

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

Alan

Member
Sep 18, 2010
271
21
UK
Hi All,

My insurance is coming up for renewal - is it really a year since I got the car?

Last time there were very few UK insurers who had the Tesla on their databases. If you have insured a roadster in the UK, please could you let me know who you insured with?

Many Thanks
Alan
 
Hi Alan

Last year it was Hiscox

This year Zurich Private Client

H was more expensive than Z but offered more (eg any driver over 30, whereas Z have been painful when I requested a temporary "other driver" - they refused).

I know that Tesla have been working to get a Thatcham rating after which many more insurers should be available. Please check with Gian Avignone to see if they have it yet. It was underway but not finished when I had to renew in March.

PM me if you want brokers names and phone numbers or actual cost comparisons.
 
How do you insure your Roadster ?

This is might seem a slightly personal question but I would love to hear from other UK Roadster owners, either on the forum or via a PM.

It would seem that here in the UK getting insurance for an EV is not straight forwards despite the number of claims from green / eco / EV friendly insurers. Today I have spent 4 hours on the phone, and entering endless details on websites, only to eventually find out that they cannot quote for one daft reason or another, or be verbally told that 'oh, actually we don’t really do those at the moment' or similar.

Without intending to brag, I need to admit to having owned many exotic supercars in the past, as well as road legal race cars, wacky ones offs, custom made vehicles, and been a true petrol head, yet I have never had the problems getting insurance like I've had today. In days past I typically had a group policy for the collection where the premium represented less than 0.5% of the net value, and allowed me to use the cars for any purpose, with no mileage restrictions, including track days (but with a very large excess on track use).

I have so far obtained just two tentative quotes but each was for 400% more than my last Ferrari was. Both had silly mileage and use restrictions that make the cost of insuring the car on a per-mile basis 50 times more than it will cost to run in electricity terms !!! Which kinda defeats all the UK benefits of running an EV (no road tax, no $12 / Gallon petrol, no congestion charges, amazing capital allowances against corporation tax etc etc).

There's nothing unusual about my past history, location, age, risk, motoring offences, accidents, or anything that might adversely effect a premium.

Best line today has been from a very well known household name insurer who confirmed right at the start of the call that they can cover EVs and that they know what a Tesla is. So, 10 minutes of personal questions later I get the question 'what size engine is it, Sir ?' …

Another reckoned 'loads had been stolen' and weren't able to proceed to a quote due to the number of payouts (seriously!).

I generally asked most of them why they were so adverse to this electric supercar, only to be told opportunists nick them, drive them till they run out of petrol, then burn the car to hide their finger prints. None would not accept that a Tesla can be PIN encoded to prevent opportunists enjoying some electric acceleration. One said that there was a huge black market for all the dismantled parts. Whilst a Tesla has high'ish value, there are plenty of high end Audi's / Mercs / Ferraris / other exotica that have immediate black market appeal and have considerably more value and theft appeal, but still cost far less to insure.

I suspect that the real reason is more to do with naivety on the part of the insurance market, and a lack of any stats to allow then to calculate the risk.

I have asked Tesla UK about this, and they have provided just one contact.


So, can anyone point me at a Tesla friendly UK broker, or underwriter ?

I'd also welcome any indication of what ballpark others are paying.


Thanks in advance.
 
Last edited:
All the reasons you heard were total BS. They're totally making things up. There is NO black market for dismantled parts for this car, I am quite certain.

I don't know about the UK, but I simply called my regular (Canadian) insurer and they added it to my policy for $600 a year. Go figure.
 
All the reasons you heard were total BS. They're totally making things up. There is NO black market for dismantled parts for this car, I am quite certain.

I know its a load of bull, everybody else knows it too, yet the type of people handling insurance quotes seem happy to hand it out by the bucket load. They also tend to spout forth bile in the same way as pre-credit crunch estate agents used to !


$600 seems entirely reasonable. Lowest tentative quote I've had (so far) is ... £2,600 / $4,100 and agreeing to only 5,000 miles a year. Thats almost $1/mile !!!
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately it does not seem possible to get insurance from a mainstream company and the "specialists" offering insurance for "green" cars say the Tesla is too expensive.

Outside the mainstream there are insurers who typically cover collections of high value cars so its best if you have more than one car, but even just for the Tesla I have been quoted much less than you have above. Try

http://www.firstpointinsurance.co.uk/car-insurance
and
Insurance Tailors Ltd

Good luck!
 
Alan - Thanks for this.

I've had a very attractive quote from Gary at Firstpoint. He immediately knew all about the car without the usual B/S, took the relevant details, and came back within 30 mins with a detailed pdf quote from Zurich thats almost half the initial daft quotes I had. (Tailors were 2nd best, but still some way off). I'm still amazed how 75% of the UK insurers I spoke have never heard of an "electric car", and some of the responses are worthy of a stand up comedians sketch !!

Best thing for me was that Zurich include senisble unrestricted cover .. AND .. Class 1 Business use, as well as the normal s/d/p, and they approved in writing a couple of the mods to the car that I'll detail in a future thread since they may be beneficial to many others.

Cheers !
 
Last edited:
Hi All,

Another year has rolled around and its time to insure again. I have an OK ish renewal via Firstpoint but would like to try a few other companies to see if I can get a better premium. I have tried a couple of the price comparison sites, but none seem to work for EVs.

If you are in the UK and insured by anyone other than Firstpoint please can you let me know which company / broker you are using.

Thx
Alan
 
what do you pay for your Zurich invoice?

i currently pay 1100EUR /a at Zurich but try to bring down because other german companies contract the same for only the half of the price.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
All our cars are covered under a single Chubb Masterpiece policy.
They added my Tesla without problem and at lower cost than elsewhere.
Tesla insurance is expensive because there is only one place to get them repaired...

Try calling Jeremy Burgess at Coversure in Reigate for a quote.

Ray.