Best insurance for suburban daily driver?

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uncle nick
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1988
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suburban
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v8
Hey guys I am new to the forum and I’m trying to find insurance for my 88 suburban and I’m hitting a wall when it comes to stated value because they are considering my vehicle an altered suspension vehicle due to the lift kit.

I was wondering what insurance everyone uses for their vehicles that are daily drivers and have a lift kit. The last thing I want is to have $15,000 sunk into this project in the insurance company tries to cut me a check for $2000 if it gets totaled.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. I’ve already tried progressive and they tell me I need to get a commercial vehicle policy for some reason. Geico is out of the question for me because they have horrible service in Oklahoma and state farm is also one that I would rather not go with due to a high dispute probability on payouts.
 

Vbb199

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Following because ive never really looked into it myself, but my c10 is worth alot more than the 1500$ stated value
 

Doppleganger

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Haggerty is the one many use. I have had coverage from them that was cheap, and then they'll blow me away with something so absurd, I want to total the car to break even.

You can go to them direct, but the last time I had them, my insurance agent got a Haggerty policy, it was integrated into my regular bill, and cheaper yet.
 
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Since this is a daily driver I cannot use haggerty unfortunately
 

SirRobyn0

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Since this is a daily driver I cannot use haggerty unfortunately
I'm with Allstate. When I got the square my agent went over with my possible values for the truck. My truck is not restored or anything like that. He just needed to value the truck for his paper work. He did explain that there is no guarantee of that pay out if the truck is totaled. But my experience with Allstate (I've had them for pushing 30 years) has been if you hang on to receipts for work it's very likely that you will get something for that stuff. For example I had a tree fall on a pickup I had years ago. It was parked on the farm when this happened, and I had something like 8K on a new motor in this old truck. After they offered a value based on the condition of the truck I submitted receipts for the motor, which they did add to the my check, but they did not cover stuff like mounts, radiator hose ect, because they considered that regular maintenance. I've had RV's covered and totaled with Allstate to and had similar experiences. You might ask around to see if you have a friend with Allstate or look up well rated agent in your area and call him and ask him about your particular situation. The down fall is if someone else hits you, your stuck dealing with their insurance and what their insurance will pay. Haggerty is the only company I'm aware of that will guarantee a certain amount if totaled.
 

RecklessWOT

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I've never heard of a company requiring special insurance for lifted trucks? I guess if you had like 12" lift riding on 44's there's no hiding it, but with the 2" lift and 33s I have, it looks stock enough so when I was in my accident nobody asked questions.

Then again, I only had liability on the 'Burb because it's a $1000 old Chevy truck and maybe a total of $1200 in lift and tires on it. If I had some fancy rig with a custom paintjob and big chrome wheels or something it might be a different story, but IDK. I'm not planning on crashing the rig, I just have insurance on it so I don't end owing a ton of money if an accident happens and I'm at fault.

According to the insurance company, I was "at fault" in my accident (despite this dumb b!tch being on the wrong side of the double yellow and speeding, but somehow the cops were able to play the law books to make sure the hot girl in the brand new car got the money and screw the guy in the ugly old suburban), and while her car was totaled and she had medical bills, my truck took less than $1k worth of damage which I happily paid out of pocket. (I had Geico BTW, stay far away they suck. Even though I provided photos of the accident scene that show her clearly all the way on the wrong side of the road and giving them a letter where the court threw out my ticket and said I wasn't doing anything wrong, geico didn't even try to back me up, they just bent over and took it because agreeing with the other person's insurance company made their life easier). That was my first actual accident (besides being a stupid kid and banging up my own car a little bit while trying to do something cool, etc) and I have been paying however the fcuk much money a month since I got my driver's license, if you do the math even if I had to junk my truck and buy another one, it's cheaper than what the total would add up to if I had full coverage, but at least I didn't end up needing to buy this dumb b!tch a new car out of pocket so the insurance did its job. Unless you have something worth BIG money (I'm talking like 20K+) it's not really worth full coverage. Usually gambling with basic liability minimum works out. It is technically a gamble, but the odds are greatly in your favor. I mean seriously what are the odds that you're gonna total a brand new Porsche or something? It could happen, but you have better odds of hitting green playing roulette at the casino.

My wife had Liberty Mutual when we started dating. Someone tried to take a right out of the left lane directly into my driver's door and ran me off the road one night while I was driving her car to work 3rd shift, totaled the thing. We had a check in hand maybe 3-4 days later at most (for far more than the car was worth as far as I can tell). I never had such a pleasant experience they took care of everything. I'd check in with them if rates are worth it in your area.
 

Kiely

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I have had Hagerty. We had an agreed value of $10,000 since I was just starting the project. I had it set up so that I could drive whenever I wanted to. My son-in-law crashed it causing $6500 damage. Hagerty stepped up and paid for the repairs with no deductible. They charge me around $600 a year. So while it was in the shop I had the rust repair done, it was minor and had the whole truck painted. The son-in-law is gone now.
 

Rusty Nail

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In March 2018 a little old lady turned in front of my 75K5 on her way to church and totalled it with a Lincoln..
I had been done workin on it for about two weeks... Took almost ONE YEAR to settle...(how'd I get to work?)
I own more than one ride and its a good thing.

Couple other lessons I learned the HARD WAY might help provide answers or at least ideas?

lesson #1
Save the reciepts. All of them.
ONLY WAY TO PROVE THE WORTH.

lesson #2
Buy more than the 10-20-10 minimum.

My medical bills cost more than $25k AND as soon as I hit that 20k number - any additional costs came out of pocket.

walked home from the wreck...now have double that coverage and my shoulder still hurts.

lesson #3
Be nice to your agent.

A good insurance agent is invaluable.

There are more than three lessons there..buy enough insurance to enjoy yourself or why bother?
I would never dream of not buying uninsured motorist coverage.

Good luck!
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idahovette

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Great advice @Rusty Nail , especially about your agent. They can make all the difference in the world!!!!
 

Ricko1966

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I'm with Allstate. When I got the square my agent went over with my possible values for the truck. My truck is not restored or anything like that. He just needed to value the truck for his paper work. He did explain that there is no guarantee of that pay out if the truck is totaled. But my experience with Allstate (I've had them for pushing 30 years) has been if you hang on to receipts for work it's very likely that you will get something for that stuff. For example I had a tree fall on a pickup I had years ago. It was parked on the farm when this happened, and I had something like 8K on a new motor in this old truck. After they offered a value based on the condition of the truck I submitted receipts for the motor, which they did add to the my check, but they did not cover stuff like mounts, radiator hose ect, because they considered that regular maintenance. I've had RV's covered and totaled with Allstate to and had similar experiences. You might ask around to see if you have a friend with Allstate or look up well rated agent in your area and call him and ask him about your particular situation. The down fall is if someone else hits you, your stuck dealing with their insurance and what their insurance will pay. Haggerty is the only company I'm aware of that will guarantee a certain amount if totaled.
Okay what I get from this is don't park your stuff near Robyn's stuff,he has bad luck.
 

SirRobyn0

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Okay what I get from this is don't park your stuff near Robyn's stuff,he has bad luck.
Well there is at least some truth to that, check out the Farming thread for the tree that came down during the last storm and wiped out one of those car canopies I was using for storage and did a bunch of damage to my tractor shed. We have trees on the property and things happen during storms. Back in the early 2000's when I lost that old truck to a tree fall, and the old motorhome took a tree to the roof, there wasn't much parking. One spot by the house the rest were literally in between trees. Now there is a dedicated area by the barn, and while there are still trees in the vicinity all the really bad dangerous trees are gone from the area.
 

Grit dog

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I just went through this with the 86 pickup and insurance and our Ins Co goes by NADA retail which was surprisingly off the charts for an 86 GMC 4x4 pickup. More than enough to cover a total loss, even with the money I have into the truck.
However I looked up 88 Suburban just now and took the liberty of adding 4wd and AC to the options and NADA values are like 70% less than the 86 truck, so yeah that's an issue if your'e looking for high value limits.

It's a "classic" that doesn't carry good classic car values, and given the very small number of owners that are daily driving a high value old car or truck, it is what it is probably. Or in other words, not only from an insurance standpoint, an 80s square burb is a bad vehicle for ROI if you're gonna sink a bunch of money in it.
 

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