A 1986 Testarossa is scheduled to be auctioned in Monterey, California this week, but unlike other vintage Ferraris, this one was driven by the infamous Sonny Crockett on the 1980s TV show “Miami Vice.”
The lucky winner of the Testarossa will probably want to insure the prized possession, and if so, will need to head to a classic car insurance provider – a specialty line that may not yield high profits, but brokers love to partake in nonetheless.
“The average premium is about $250 per year, based on the value of the vehicle,” said Jason Wilson, manager and co-founder of VINTAGE Auto Insurance. “So it’s not a profit-driven product as much as it is a loss leader.”
Find out how much does classic car insurance cost with this article.
Wilson generally places his focus on cars that have been on the market for 25 years or longer and boast a fair market value over $10,000. Since collector cars are generally owned by “10-star, perfect drivers” and policies are geographically agnostic, the two main pricing structures differ by whether the vehicle is a stock car of a modified one.
Stock cars, which represent the vehicle in its truest form to the factory model, are typically cheaper to insure.
“Modifications may require special parts, expertise or labor to repair damages, which results in higher claims,” Wilson explains.
Wilson encountered a claim involving a 1929 Ford Hot Rod, for example, which was a modified vehicle but still illustrates this point well. The hot rod had suffered damage to the driver's side door and rear fender that could have been fixed for a reasonable fee, if it weren't for the custom work that had been performed on the vehicle.
"Initial estimates came in around $3,000, and would have stayed there if not for the custom paint job," Wilson said. "The custom paint could not be matched, which resulted in the car being taken apart, repainted entirely and put back together - totaling over $14,000."
While an approximately 60% of collector cars that go missing are never recovered because they end up “in another country or in parts,” premiums are still relatively low – about $1,500 for a $500,000 vehicle. Wilson says this is because losses never exceed 20 to 25%, since drivers take so many extra precautions to safeguard their vehicles.
“They treat their vehicles a different way, it’s almost as if their priorities are a little of whack – first it’s their cars, then their house, then everything else,” he joked.
As far as the 1986 Ferrari Testarossa, if it ends up arriving in an Ontario driveway and has certified documentation as the original Miami Vice car, the insurance price tag will be a lot less of a hit than the California’s auction will.
“If it’s bought on the auction market for $1 million, with approval from the company, I would say I could get it insured for two to three grand, depending on deductibles,” Wilson said. “A car like that, you don’t drive around a lot, so there’s not much risk in that regard.”
