Insuring in Washington State, USA

Hey folks, first post here, but for all my fellow US and Washington State people; I thought I’d share my success with insuring my ‘95 Hiace Living Saloon with State Farm in the state of Washington.

Apologies if this info already lives in this forum somewhere but here are things I learned that might be helpful for folks searching the internet for how to insure a grey market, imported JDM in the USA. This might be common knowledge to some, but having just gone through this, I wish I had known some of these more basic facts and I had trouble finding info online. Shout out to my Delica friend who helped with some of this, and to the 2.5 hours I spent on the phone with various insurance agencies trying to figure this stuff out. Also, a HUGE caveat that I'm not an expert, and these are just bits of info from MY EXPERIENCE to help guide you in this process!

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TIPS/INFO

You’ll need to know your VIN number, but the 13 digit VIN on JDM cars will throw off some insurance agencies. By adding four zeros to the end of the VIN, you’ll get 17 digits that most insurance agencies need for their systems. You can just explain this to your agent if they’re having trouble. Example: KZH100XXXXXXX0000

Liability insurance (covering only the damage to another vehicle/person in an accident) is cheaper to get than both liability and comprehensive insurance (damage to the vehicle itself), but if you DO get comprehensive, the insurance company might just value your car at whatever they think the blue book value for a 1995 Toyota Van is, which is around $1000. Definitely not the $15k you spent on it, and easily totaled with some not so major body damage. I was asked the MSRP of my Hiace, and with a little bit of internet research I found a website with Hiace MSRPs, so I told my agent both the price I paid for my van, and the MSRP of $22,000. Is this 100% accurate? I have no idea, but the agent didn't have issues with it. Make sure, when getting comprehensive, that you get an idea for just how much that coverage will actually cover.

Edit to add a comment someone posted on FB correcting some points about coverage. Insurance shit is so confusing to me:
“In automobile insurance there is Liability and Physical Damage. Of the Physical Damage there are 2 components. Collision: exactly that, Collision with another car or an object. Then, there is Comprehensive. IE not Collision. That is Fire, Theft, Vandalism, Flood, Glass, Hitting a animal such as a deer. What people call "Full Coverage" is Liability, Comprehensive and Collision. Putting just Liability and then Comprehensive omits a huge coverage that should be necessary for a high valued vehicle and is required to satisfy loan requirements.”

We wanted to stay with our current insurance agency PEMCO, but they have a policy against insuring grey market cars. I tried 4 different times and got a big NOPE. This does bring up the point though: If you want to stay with your current insurance company and insure your new van but are having trouble, try calling a few times until you get someone who is willing to play ball. In my case with PEMCO it took 4 calls just to get someone on the phone who could flat out explain that they have a policy against JDM imports. "No" is at least still an answer, and it took 4 tries to get there.

Progressive was down to insure and didn’t balk at the VIN but wanted $250 a month just to insure the van. No thanks!

Amica only wanted to do liability insurance, and even then, the person on the phone was very frank with me and basically said "it won't be worth it to insure with us."

A lot of info online suggests insuring your JDM import through a classic/collector's car agency like Haggerty. I don't know if folks have success here, but even after filling out the brief form online, they said I didn't qualify. Most likely, these vans just aren't valued quite the same as an R32 Skyline GTR.

I finally got on the phone with State Farm. The person on the phone wasn't 100% sure at first if he could insure me without getting a higher-up employee/agent on the line, but after asking some clarifying questions and me answering with a lot of the info I laid out above, I ended up getting liability/comprehensive coverage at a rate WAYYYY better than Progressive.

Overall positive experience with State Farm, but this will all be put the test if/when I actually need them for an accident. I'll update this post with any info as I learn it.

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The end!

Any other members here have insurance tips/info they want to share for our US community?

I have State Farm's classic car insurance here in Oregon. It's very affordable, our 95 Hiace is ~$16/month. They inspect your vehicle's condition, and ask a lot of questions including if it's garaged or driven often, what the agreed upon value of it is, etc. If you have more questions you can send me a PM.
I got a quote from Haggerty, but they wanted over $500/month! I never looked anywhere else since it's so affordable with State Farm.

$500? Wow, and weird. I went with Hagerty and am paying $45 a month, but it's good to know that there may be a cheaper option in State Farm, I'll check that out. Hagerty just asked me what I thought the value of the vehicle was, they didn't even come out to look at it.

djathens, that's good to know you had luck with haggerty. what kind of coverage did you end up with?

and damn, $16 a month is SUPER low 4Misch, that's awesome.

Well in the age of Covid they didn't physically inspect my vehicle, they had me send in several pictures. It was in a little rougher shape at the time too. If going with State farm I would definitely inquire about their classic car policy. I believe mine is only $100 for collateral and $250 for collision. What dictates it most is that:
1. You don't drive it often
2. It's garaged
3. The agreed upon value. I sent in several links to dealer listings in the USA to establish an agreed upon value. Which for Hiace's is between $10-20,000 depending on features, 4wd, condition, milage, etc.

Good luck to you, hope this helps others.

@Gregory I have $500 deductible collision, $0 deductible on liability (they're calling it 'other than collision')

Bodily Injury Liability - $25k per person / $50k per accident
Property Damage - $25k per accident
Personal Injury Protection - $15k per accident
Uninsured Motorists Bodily Injury - $25k per person / $50k per accident
Uninsured Motorists Property Damage - $20k per accident
Spare Parts $750

HTH

Awesome, thanks for the details! Hopefully this helps folks negotiate some good deals on insurance.

@4Misch, jealous of your garage situation! My garage's opening is not tall enough to even the pull van into, and besides, there's already a garage queen in there!

Gregory wrote:

Overall positive experience with State Farm, but this will all be put the test if/when I actually need them for an accident. I'll update this post with any info as I learn it.

Well... this is always the hard part! Unfortunately, I have gone through this experience with State Farm so I can provide some insight there.

My van got smooshed by a tree branch and was totaled. I had comprehensive ($0 deductible) with State Farm, paying $70/month (they couldn't do classic car because its my only driver and no garage).

In the end, I kept the van and got $1k MORE than I had paid for it. But it was not an easy process and took a lot of work on my part, which I will try to write up at some point for another unfortunate soul in the future.

I can't say I would recommend State Farm but not sure anyone would be easier. I got a bit lucky with a van listed for $20k right when I needed comparables for pricing. Because the vans have gone up in value since I bought it in 2019, I got more than I paid. That wouldn't have been the case with an agreed value policy.

There is currently duct tape keeping the sun roof from leaking while I figure out how to fix it without replacing the whole roof...

I also ended up going with Hagerty and have pretty high coverage for everything. I can't speak to Washington specifically as I'm in CO. I want to say I pay $500/year.
The only downside is they seem quite strict about where it's kept. Nothing uncovered in CO for hail reasons. I'm moving and will build a garage once we do, but for now I had to rent a storage unit to keep it in since I've got nothing.

You’ll need to know your VIN number, but the 13 digit VIN on JDM cars will throw off some insurance agencies. By adding four zeros to the end of the VIN, you’ll get 17 digits that most insurance agencies need for their systems. You can just explain this to your agent if they’re having trouble.



Well why didn't I think of that. I just picked up in my 97 Super Custom this weekend and drove it uninsured from Virginia back to Denver because no one will insure it or can't proceed past the lack of 17 digit VIN#. I'll call progressive back but I have a question first. What happens if I get into an at -fault accident and my VIN doesn't match up because I added the extra 4 zeros? I'm worried I would be liable and insurance wouldn't cover the damages to the other party.

Just want to add to the thread.  I just flew to Virginia to pick up my '97 Super Custom AWD.  I just assumed USAA would cover me.  Well after driving off the dealer lot, my wife called USAA and they don't cover gray market cars.  The transferred us to Liberty Mutual who couldn't cover us either because they couldn't verify the VIN.  We called Geico also and they wouldn't cover us because we needed to get a safety inspection even after we told them 25 year old cars are waived from the requirement.  They told us to try Hagerty who wouldn't cover us either unless it's for vintage car shows only. Well we drove all the way home uninsured.  Got home and called Progressive and they wouldn't cover us either because of the short VIN.  Then I found this thread and added the 4 0s to my VIN and sure enough it worked.  $253/6 months for Colorado driver.

kosayno wrote:

 $253/6 months for Colorado driver.

Was this with Liberty mutual or Progressive? Currently with State farm but going to try to find some cheaper options.

"Was this with Liberty mutual or Progressive? Currently with State farm but going to try to find some cheaper options."

This was Progressive.  I forgot to mention this is only for liability with $500 deductible and not for comprehensive/full coverage. They quoted us $768/6 months for full coverage.  Liberty Mutual wouldn't insure us.

I’m in Oregon and haven’t had any issues with insurance. I highly recommend getting in touch with an independent agent/broker who writes policies for different companies. My guy shops around and even gets in touch when he thinks he can find a better deal. I’ve had liberty mutual and progressive but I’m currently with SafeCo. He’s licensed in Washington:

Sean R McLoughlin
Lead Sales Representative
Comparion Insurance Agency
A Liberty Mutual Company
4949 SW Meadows Rd Suite 650
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
Cell: 503-504-8624
Office: 503-462-0533
Fax: 1-855-331-5429
OR/WA/AZ License #685449

In Washington and ended up doing Hagerty. $400 per year with high liability.

Do you both on Hagerty have another vehicle?

Hagerty said they wouldn't insure me under the collector program because its my only vehicle. Even though its not a daily driver - drove less than 1k miles last year.

I tried Sean and he did provide a quote (the Hagerty one) but never followed up after I sent back some questions. So guess I need to keep looking!

I have a second vehicle not insured through Hagerty. I believe you have to have another vehicle to qualify through them. I also found Sean unresponsive.