It was the highest price ever paid for a car at auction, soundly beating the eight-figure Ferrari sales that had long topped the blue-chip billing.
“There are some parts of the world where people won’t insure high-value vehicles,” says Jack Butcher, Hagerty’s president of global markets. “They want to keep them off the books.”A spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz said the company would not comment on insurance with regard to the record-setting coupé.
Galleries and art fairs often use this form of coverage to protect paintings, sculptures, prints, collections, and cultural artefacts, and elite garages do it with cars. This includes protection from damage or loss due to theft, accident, mishandling, or in the event of an undetermined cause for property to have gone missing.
“It’s customary for insurance generally to not try to insure what they consider normal wear and tear,” Butcher says.Most important when underwriting such a policy is to agree upon the value for which the vehicle will be insured. That number can be far above what was paid for it; it may also rise as a car is restored. Kidston declined to discuss specifics about the value for which his client’s vehicle would be insured.
Keeping a vehicular asset away from wildfire areas and hurricane zones is vital. So is storing it in a temperature-controlled environment with effective security cameras, burglar alarms, and sprinkler systems that can spray fire-retardant foam. A deductible typically does not apply in cases of ultra-rare cars. If an owner insists on one, it could be 1% or 5% or 10% of the total insured value of the car, Butcher says. Having a deductible is one way to avoid having to submit an insurance claim for smaller incidents such as dings or cracked wheels.