Picking up 110 SW soon, confused by insurance

We're just about to pick up a 2012 110 SW, and am very confused about insurance, with regard to modifications. the car is absolutely bog standard, but having read about security issues i thought I'd add
security hinges and a removable steering wheel. When I tried to add those as modifications on quotes, they weren't recognised. After talking to advisors on the phone, it seemed that these mods were so unusual they nearly fell off their chairs, as far as I could tell. Do people just do these mods and not bother telling people? Or did I just phone the wrong insurers? I got a quote with no mods (I've decided we'll use a wheel clamp) and adjust the hinge bolts, it's cheaper and maybe as good security wise. The Adrian Flux quote with the removable steering wheel was 4x the quote I went for. Which I can't understand as surely these mods make it harder to steal the vehicle, not easier? Even if it's now suddenly more attractive for some reason?
After this farce, I decided to go for broke and inquired about parking camera and sensors as a n
mod with the company i have now got insurance with. I've just had an online chat and then phone call and then email and then phone call as the insurers needed to know if I was fitting a kit or a system that required electrical qualifications. Well, when I've had a look it'll probably be a kit. So my request has now gone off to underwriters for consideration. OK, I'll have a look on ebay for a kit. Hmm, 'parking sensors' comes up with 130,000+ products for sale. How can the insurer not be familiar with this mod? Have only 5 of those 130,000+ products been sold? Well, no as one of them has been sold 4500+ times. What is going on here? Does no-one who fits these things tell their insurers? The other problem is that if the premium goes up by say, £30, that is in stark contrast to the £10 cost of the kit. According to a survey someone did, fitting parking sensors reduces your premium on average by 10%. Well, let's see.

One of the advantages of this sort of vehicle is that you can mod it and bolt stuff on. if I do then at thius rate I'm going to be on the phone for the rest of my life.

Sorry for the ramble...

Hello and welcome to LZ
when they ask about mods its normally things like lift kits and rock sliders, i would not class security hinges as a mod that would come under additional
security, and you want as much on it as you can as they do like to go walkies

Welcome to the forum

Try the NFU national farmers union

brianp38dse said:

Hello and welcome to LZ
when they ask about mods its normally things like lift kits and rock sliders, i would not class security hinges as a mod that would come under additional
security, and you want as much on it as you can as they do like to go walkies

Click to expand...

Hello,
Yes, I assumed they meant that. After a few phone calls and getting an underwriter involved, they have agreed the parking sensor changes. When that was added to my policy there was 'a significant additional premium generated'. The person at the insurance company I was dealing with thinks this is wrong and is going to chase their pricing query team to try to get the increase removed. So that's a bit of good news.

Andrew

Hippo said:

Welcome to the forum

Try the NFU national farmers union

Click to expand...

Thank you for the welcome. I'm pretty happy with the quote I got, it's just the hassle of adding mods, or not being able to. After all the effort getting one mod added (well maybe, see above), I think I'm going to ty to stick with the curent compoany. Next year I'm definitely looking round though, if I can't get th emods I want.

Andrew