Japanese car import insurance

Let’s say you’re casually web shopping for used cars—one of our favorite time-wasting activities—and something unusual grabs your interest. Maybe it’s one of those exotic Japanese domestic market (JDM) cars, one that has lived out the 25-year U.S. import restrictions and is finally available stateside. Even more intriguing, let’s say it can be had for less than $25,000 or even $10,000.

So you’ve found an obscure and relatively inexpensive car for sale, but what about the insurance? That will be astronomical, right? The answer, thankfully, is not usually. The cheapest and easiest way to insure your exotic purchase would be to go the same route taken by buyers of classic and collectible cars: Use an insurer that specializes in this realm. Asked about underwriting a cheaper but rare import, Jonathan Klinger of insurance specialist Hagerty said, “Absolutely, those vehicles are insurable just like you insure anything else on a collector policy.”

Hagerty will insure the vehicle for a value agreed on up front. So even though the price of a 1991 Honda Beat convertible may be something of a moving target in the United States, if the owner wants to insure it for $6000, then that’s what would be paid out in the event of a total loss, and rates in some states could be as low as $300 a year. The vehicle does not have to be a certain age or have a minimum value. “We’ll insure something that’s brand new, if it’s your fun car,” Klinger said.

And this part is key: Collector-car insurers such as Hagerty will cover your obscure import car for an agreed-upon value, as long as it’s not your daily driver.  The way Hagerty’s policies are set up, you also need to have a “regular-use vehicle” for each driver in the household in addition to your exotic import. Klinger said Hagerty will make exceptions, such as for retirees or for people who live in dense urban areas, or other examples in which there is less dependency on driving.

There is no set mileage limit, and how often you actually drive the extra oddball car is not something Hagerty polices, but like other classic-car insurers, it assumes that you’re not going to be racking up thousands of miles a week in a vehicle that’s rare and unique.

Not as Pricey as You May Think

So what if you do want to daily-drive a Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R? That will be absurdly expensive, right? “That’s what a lot of people think,” said Max Rios, who owns JDM Auto Imports in Janesville, Wisconsin. “But it’s really not.” Even the performance-oriented gray-market darling Nissan Skyline is “right on par with a 25-year-old vehicle,” Rios said.

Rios will often go to a local broker and get unusual imported vehicles insured without a problem through large carriers, he said. Big insurers told Car and Driver they base rates for these kinds of vehicles on the same factors used for mainstream autos, such as the age of the car, its initial price, and the model’s loss history. “The first couple are pretty clear cut, and the third [loss history]—if there isn’t a large number of them available—would be placed in a group with other vehicles that are similar in size and weight,” a spokesman for Allstate said in an email.

1989 Nissan Skyline GT-R

Most insurers keep track of vehicles through their vehicle identification number (VIN), but some JDM vehicles have VINs with a different number of digits than the traditional 17, which can be an issue. Gary Duncan’s Duncan Imports and Classic Cars, in Christiansburg, Virginia, has recently been amassing Japanese and other obscure imports. He told C/D that there have been cases when customers’ insurance agents have backed away from imported cars and trucks after their computers failed to match or find VINs for the vehicles. “At that point the customers come back to us and we send them to Hagerty, which welcomes them with open arms and understands these vehicles,” said Duncan, whose impressive inventory now includes several hundred JDM cars and trucks. Sometimes insurers will also ask for an appraisal in lieu of a serial number, said Rios of JDM Imports.

Larger insurers may also have a clearer underwriting picture for the exotic import if it already has a U.S. counterpart. For example, a JDM Nissan President is the direct relative of the U.S.-market Infiniti Q45; the same can be said for the Toyota Mark II and Cressida, or the Suzuki Jimny and Samurai.

In these cases of equivalents, it should be easier to find potential parts for your purchase. But Sam Grundy, vice president of Grundy Insurance, said the availability of a U.S. counterpart is not likely to affect your insurance premium. Grundy Insurance specializes in underwriting collector cars, and it’s one of the agencies where Rios sends customers if they run into roadblocks with traditional insurers.

1992 Mazda Autozam AZ-1

A collector-car policy with Grundy for a $10,000 car will typically cost just $175 to $200 annually, Grundy said. “If it’s your daily driver, you’re looking at pretty standard rates.” Specialty insurers such as Grundy tend to draw a line between what constitutes a collector car and an extra beater that you want to get covered. The company looks at whether the car is mass produced and if it’s decreasing in value. If someone tried to get a collector’s policy on a Toyota Camry, for example, he or she would be turned away. “We’re not doing used-car insurance, we’re doing collector-car insurance,” he said.

• 12 Awesome Foreign Cars That Soon Will Be Eligible for U.S. Import
• How Insuring an Old Car Differs from Insuring Your Daily Driver
• Can You Get a Decent Car for $1000 or Less? Yes, and Here’s a Pathway through the Junker Jungle

So maybe you’ve always wanted a car with gullwing doors but don’t quite have the funds for a DeLorean DMC-12, let alone a Mercedes-Benz 300SL. But if you find a quirky little Autozam AZ-1 (pictured above), it’s good to know there are insurance options out there that typically won’t break your bank. Speaking of bank, if you don’t have the cash and are looking for a loan for that AZ-1, that is another matter entirely. Duncan said, of the travails of adding an obscure import to your garage, “The issue’s not the insurance, it’s the financing.”