London Range Rover Owners Can’t Get Insurance Cover

Range Rover owners who live in London are finding it almost impossible to insure their vehicles.

Last year, more than 5,200 Range Rovers were stolen in the UK, with many taken in London. It was reportedly the secondmost stolen vehicle type nationwide.

That has led to a lot of insurers refusing to offer cover or massively increasing premiums, as a result of a rising number of claims.

A specialist broker told Autocar that Range Rovers were alone among prestige cars in having extremely high insurance premium quotes. ‘With cars such as Volvo XC90s or Porsches there is no problem,’ he said.

Neil Thomas, who is the director of investigation services at vehicle tracking firm AX, told the publication that Range Rovers were profitable for thieves. It quoted him as saying: ‘The problem for Range Rovers is not their security; instead, it’s their huge popularity here and abroad. A thief knows they can dispose of one very easily and for a good price, so will invest in the technology they need to steal them.

‘We haven’t yet encountered a stolen new-shape Range Rover, but when the thieves’ technology catches up, we expect to.’

Autocar said that when it tried insuring a nearly-new £209,786 Range Rover SV P510E with a £,1250 excess on a fully comprehensive policy while pretending to be a central London resident, it received only seven quotes from Comparethemarket.com and they ranged from £4,351 to £5,952.

When it tried again for a nearly-new £209,950 Bentley Bentayga 4.0 V8 S with the same excess, there were 11 quotes, with most of them around £2,000.

The quotes were calculated on the market value of the cars, which for the Range Rover was judged by the insurers to be £149,270.

As a result, if there was a claim – for example, if the car had been stolen – the policies would pay at least £60,000 less than the Range Rover’s purchase price.

Land Rover stopped offering insurance for its models last November after its partnership with insurance provider Verex ended by mutual agreement, said

Autocar.

Autocar was told by JLR that the issue of vehicle theft was taken very seriously by the manufacturer.

‘We recommend that clients use all available measures to protect their vehicle, including activating our “Remote” app and its suite of security features including “Guardian Mode”, which monitors the vehicle and provides an alert if the car has been unlocked’. .

Information for this story sourced from AUTOCAR.