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.