Lancaster Insurance Services has been arranging classic car insurance for more than 35 years, but its range is far wider today.
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As well as offering classic car and classic van insurance, Lancaster also provides products such as 4x4 insurance, multi-vehicle cover, motorhome and campervan insurance, military vehicle cover and performance/modified car insurance.
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First established in 1984, the business was originally the insurance division of the MG Owners’ Club, offering MG insurance to members. It became independent in 1989 and renamed itself as Lancaster Insurance Services, while starting to offer insurance on other classic cars besides just MGs.
These days it claims to offer cover for virtually any classic car. Lancaster has also broadened its reach into other areas and has long since specialised in offering 4x4 insurance as well. Lancaster Insurance Services is a trading name of Insurance Factory Limited and has been owned by the Markerstudy Group since 2013.
Lancaster provides three types of car insurance cover:
Third Party
This is the minimum level of cover that Lancaster offers and is also the minimum legal requirement that you need to drive on UK roads. Taking out this level of cover means that if you are in an accident, you are insured for damage to other people’s vehicles and property as well as injuries sustained to others. Third Party cover does not provide insurance for you or your car.
Third Party Fire & Theft
Lancaster can offer Third Party Fire & Theft (TPFT), a step up from basic third-party cover. As well as providing the legal minimum, Lancaster’s TPFT policy will protect your vehicle against damage caused by fire and theft.
Comprehensive
Lancaster’s fully comprehensive policies offer insurance cover for you and your vehicle even for accidents that are found to have been caused by you. The comprehensive car insurance also comprises the minimum cover you get from third party as well as Lancaster’s TPFT policy.
Lancaster has a specialist classic car customer service team, with a UK-based call centre and a 24-hour claims helpline.
Lancaster offers handy discounts of up to 25% on classic car insurance for car club members.
Gives you more flexibility in how you choose to repair your classic car.
Should your car be uneconomical to repair, this gives you the chance to buy back your classic car from the insurer after an accident claim.
Allows you to drive your car in continental Europe for up to 90 days.
This gives you a lower premium for keeping your mileage below a certain level.
You can get static show cover if you are presenting the car at shows and towing it back and forth to your home.
An essential if you are going to be taking part in the odd rally.
Lancaster will arrange Accidental Damage, Fire and Theft cover if you are keeping your classic car off the road.
These options allow you to insure your keys and/or portable electronic gadgets against loss, theft or damage.
Lancaster has teamed up with AXA Assistance to offer UK breakdown cover or UK & EU cover. As well as for the UK, the latter gives you breakdown cover for driving around over 35 EU countries.
This covers the legal costs of making a claim, or the legal expenses involved in defending a claim made against you.
Provides additional cover in the event of serious injury or death as the result of an accident.
This means that the excess in a claim will be refunded to you where there is no responsible third party.
This gives you peace of mind as it means in the event of a total loss claim on your classic car the amount paid out will be already fixed, less any policy excess.
If you have more than one classic car in your household, Lancaster can arrange one insurance policy that covers all the vehicles. This saves you the additional hassle that comes with having different insurance policy renewal dates and policy numbers. Having your classic cars insured under a single policy can also work out as being more cost effective.
Lancaster sees itself as something of an expert in this area as it has been arranging specialist 4x4 insurance for over twenty years. Most of the 4x4 policies it offers include green laning & off-road cover as standard, meaning you should be fully insured when you venture down green lanes and go off-road.
Lancaster can arrange cover for a wide range of 4x4 and off-road vehicles, including Land Rover, Range Rover, Mitsubishi Shogun, Nissan Terrano and Volvo XC90. Owners club members can get up to 25% off its 4x4 policies. It is also able to offer limited mileage deals.
If you’re a classic car enthusiast, you will probably love Lancaster’s blog. Lancaster puts a lot of effort into engaging with classic car clubs and regularly sends its representatives to classic car shows. It is the headline sponsor of the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show with Discovery and is also title sponsor of the MG Owners Club (MGOC) Race Championships.
Lancaster says that if you’ve been financially impacted by Covid-19, it may be able to reduce the cost of your cover by reviewing your needs. It can also look at deferring your premium payments if you are paying by monthly direct debit.
The Financial Ombudsman Service received fewer than 10 car insurance complaints about Lancaster (that could have been a single complaint). To put that in context, 67 firms had 10 or more complaints each and those totalled 4,550 complaints. Nearly 200 firms had fewer than 10 each, sharing just 479 complaints between them.
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