Famous Classic Car Insurance

[fooey]

Yes Famous is an Australian company, but its a broker company, you are not insuring your car with them, rather with the underwriter.

The underwriter decides what claims are paid or not not the broker - Famous issue insurance on behalf of the underwriter but if the underwriter chooses not to honour the claim then there is nothing you can do (such as sue) the broker company cause thats all they are.. a broker.

You cannot call the insurance complaints hotline (which you would do for any other AU insurer) as Famous are the broker and not the ones issuing the insurance. As said above you will need to handle it yourself in Guernsey. Looking at documentation, Heritage is registered to a PO Box in Guernsey, I can envisage lots of head/heart ache trying to track them down.

[G0DF4Th3R]

i had a slight incident while with Famous and they approved my claim within 3-4 working days...thumbs up

where is Guernsy?

[hippy]

i've rang up famous a couple of times .. they can't match just cars here in SA ... missed by over 1k!!!

anyways i'm going 3rd party fire and theft ... i dont' see the point in insuring for 2k a year then getting slugged 2k on excesses which would be 4k a year if u had an accident ... might as well take the risk ...

plus just cars has on their policy a 3k value if u get hit by someone uninsured ... and u get their details ... if that went up a bit more i'd be very happy since i think i'm a safe driver now ... tough wood ... just dont hoon around, be wary and u'll be fine

[Arsn]

My renewal just came through from JustCars and that was roughly $1600. Not much of a drop from $1800 considering that I've turned 25. So i figured that I'd call around.

I called Response and they quoted my $1400 with $750 excess. Not too bad. Then i tried Famous. They originally quoted my $1700, and then asked what Justcars quoted me. When i told them, they matched it. Then i told them about Response, and they went down to that. They cut it by $300 in 2 minutes. I'm not really understanding what i going on.

Does anyone have the number for Torque? I've looked around and can't find them. I figure that it can't hurt to try them too.

But looking at the above quotes, which one between response and famous should i go for?

[hippy]

who is this response crew?

[JimX]

Torque Underwriting - 1300 369 769

I was insured with them last year, made one claim (not at fault) and they were really good. The only reason I didn't re-insure with them is because Famous beat their quote by $500 and they wouldn't match. Other than the price I have no complaints at all about Torque.

[Arsn]

I'm not 100% sure who response are. I just saw their name in this thread somewhere. They sounded pretty good though when i spoke to them.

Famous didn't even ask about my mods at all. I thought that was kind of weird.

Jimx, thanks for the number. I'll give them a call and see what they can do.

[fooey]

(snip from the wrx forums)

On 28 May 2003 ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) took action in the Federal Court against four companies claiming to be writing insurance on behalf of a Bosnian based insurer Grand. It affected approx. 1100 car insurance policy holders and most of those were for high-performance sports cars of which most of those were WRX's. The Federal Court made interim orders forcing these companies to stop selling insurance and to provide further information to ASIC. These orders included the passport surrender of company directors. Company bank accounts were also placed under interim receivership and the directors were ordered to provide affidavits identifying all their assets and bank accounts.

On 6 June ASIC took further action again in the Federal Court and appointed a provisional liquidator to the four companies. These four companies were AMCO Insurance Management Group, AMCO Group, ACC AMCO Consortium and United Investment Funds.

These insurance policies were written by brokers around Australia but the majority by Response Insurance Brokers in Ringwood.

The problem with the AMCO and Response policies was that the claimed underwriter, Grand Insurance, had no knowledge of these policies and had not authorised AMCO to act as an agent on their behalf. In summary the policies were worthless.

The next court hearing was in July. Again the Federal Court was told that the individuals associated with AMCO Insurance had refused to provide information about their bank accounts and in a frightening revelation the court was told that ASIC investigators found evidence that the company directors, members of the Banicevic family, had turned over more than $6 million at Crown Casino since June 2000.

This is all fairly serious stuff, especially if you've paid $2000 dollars for car insurance and you've got to urgently find another insurer. And did anyone mention the word refund.

In an interesting twist to this more recent saga it is interesting to point out that the offshore underwriters used by Response in recent years all appear to have met some unfortunate fate.

Caribbean International Insurance Company, who were registered in Antigua, were wound up by the UK Supreme Court in July 1999.

The next underwriter was CIIC Insurance (does the word acronym come to mind) and they were registered in Antilles and were taken over or merged to become Atlantic & Pacific Insurance. They were apparently registered in the Marshall Islands. But in April 2002 ASIC received information that Atlantic & Pacific Insurance was not and had never been registered as an insurer in the Marshall Islands.

The Australian Agent for Atlantic & Pacific Insurance, Allied Asia Insurance, was taken to the Federal Court in the same month and was ordered to stop writing insurance and later had the renewal of their insurance brokers registration refused.

The Response policies are still underwritten by an unauthorised foreign insurer. This one is registered in Guernsey.

Greg Elston

Links

http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic_pub.nsf/b...ss?openDocument

http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic_pub.nsf/b...ts?openDocument

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/200...58853069667.htm

[Arsn]

Damn, that is some interesting reading. With all that in mind, maybe i will go for famous.

But do they have the same problem as response do seeing that they are off shore too?

[HappyPuppy]

Always check out the companies you deal with...

http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic_srchlodg.nsf

[MrMeaner]

ive just bought my skyline this week, and have just got insurance through famous, got it down to $2800 a year, not to bad considering my circumstances.

P.S.= woohoo first post

[Guilty]

MrMeaner how old ru and wat circumstances is it?

I'm about to buy my skyline, like in a wk or 2...price already negotitaed and shit, just some little stuff to sort out......

i got quoted 3600 by famous!

[DAN00H]

Did anyone notice in the reply posted by fooey (cheers by the way) that 'The Response policies are still underwritten by an unauthorised foreign insurer. This one is registered in Guernsey' um, hello - Famous is also underwritten by a company in this location... Am I just being too pessimistic? Has anyone approched an insurer and said we have X number of member, can you do us a deal? surely group buying power woudl help?

[famous]

Well you Skyliners, we at Famous, who have happily paid out millions of dollars in claims sin July 2002 when we entered the market, are extreamly annoyed and disappointed to read some of your comments regarding our service. Because we provide a personal service we recognise which user names apply to our clients. Brian N, we know that the full picture is not being presented, don’t we? The remarks being made are anonymous, you don’t have the courage to identify yourselves and are usually made in ignorance or without full possession of the facts. A lot of you think we are fair game and distort facts to suite your own agenda’s. We are sick of being accused of being happy as s*!t when taking monthly payments. This is a service we provide and if it makes you sick, don’t use it! The relationship we look for with our clients is mutual respect, not master servant. If you cant handle that, perhaps Famous is not the place to insure your cars.

You should realise you are driving vehicles that have certain difficulties when it comes to insurance and its in your best interests to work with us, forget all these smart a***d comments and build relationships that benefit all of us.

Larry Tyler

Managing Director

[Duncan]

Larry, I think its great to see a representative of Famous on these forums, it gives you a great opportunity to answer questions from potential clients directly.

As I'm sure you understand, young people in turbo cars have a hard time getting insurance....as a result some people love the service you guys offer, and others think it is too good to be true....

I think if you check back thru this thread you will find a significant number of people on these forums have insured with you, and and those that have claimed have been very positive.

[Guilty]

Yes and i'm one of those happy customers. Some people might think that's a lot but after being quoted $5XXX by Just cars, i was more then happy to insure with famous.!!!

[Cubes]

My insurance through Famous is up for renewal.

They sent out a quote of $940, market value $16,000 with FMIC & Exhaust listed as mods.

I was paying by the month as its so much easier than trying to save up 1k every year due to being at uni.

Famous divide your premium by 11 months. The last month you don't have to pay.

Basic Excess to make a standard claim is 2k.

I got a quote through Shannons of $1187 which has a much more reasonable excess of $400 basic excess and $600 under 25 (1k)excess for a basic claim. He said they don't care about mods as long as they are legal, any mods that arn't legal must be engineered to make them street legal.

Shannons also do pay by the month BUT they divide the premium by 12 months so its only 2.50 per week extra.

I went with shannons due to the excess being so much more reasonable.

Famous haev been good though.

[xsoulx]

forgive my noob-ness but what are excess ?

[Cubes]

If you make a claim you are required to pay an excess.

Generally it works like this.

If you have 2k damage to your car and say 3k damage to anothers and the accident was your fault you then pay a basic excess of say $400 and a Under 25 Age excess of say $600. This is a total of $1000 you have to pay to the insurance company for everything to be fixed. Usually you will pay this to the crash reapir when you go to pick up your car.

If the accident isn't your fault then you don't have to pay an excess and you get your car fixed without any damage to your pocket.

As I said above: Reason I went with shannons is the excess in total is 1k where as the others are all 2k.

Some places also charge you an excess if the car is stolen i.e an extra (I think) $1800.

[tridentt150v]

I wanted 3rd party property insurance, but famous and torque don't do it.

At $2000 pa [the general quote median] I can afford a new car in 10 years.

I also have a Toyota Hilux Dual Cab with a 3.8 V6, Marks 4wd gearbox, 8" lift kit and 33" tyres etc etc [read heavily modified] and it only costs me $230 for tpp insurance, so I can't see my Skyline being much more than this in practical terms.

I'll keep trying for tpp insurance and expand this as I work through the companies.

Famous N/A

Torque N/A

Aon Do not insure 'imports' at all, full stop, finito, so all you guys that reckon you are insured with them, check your policy????

Just Cars $451

Unique N/A

SunCorp N/A

Oamps N/A

Vigil N/A

Shannons N/A