wow, I added mine to my USAA account and it was less than $750 for $105k.
DANGER Will Robinson!
Have you read the fine print in your policy? I'm a USAA member too, and have my daily drivers insured with them. However, I would *never* insure a collector car with an ordinary insurance policy.
USAA, State Farm, Allstate etc. offer what's called 'Actual Cash Value' policies (ACV). That sounds very warm and reassuring. It's not, because in the event of a claim, they determine the ACV, and invariably they are way low on their offer, which is a take-it-or-leave-it thing.
Sometimes they also offer a Stated Value policy. That sounds like what you have. They ask you what you think your car is worth, you tell them, then they charge you some percentage of that value. However, if you read the fine print you'll find that they are not actually obligated to pay you that amount in the event of a loss! Instead, they refer to the ACV rules--they just pick a number out of the air and hand it to you. That number is usually defined by somebody who knows nothing about collector cars, who just thumbs through an Autotrader and averages the prices of nominally similar cars, minus a bit.
Stating your value at the time they wrote the policy is merely their way of extracting a higher premium. Very sneaky!
What you want, and what the various collector car companies offer, is an Agreed Value policy. This is exactly what it sounds like--you and the insurance company sign a binding contract ahead of time, in which they agree to pay up to X amount to settle your claim. In the event of a total loss, they will pay the maximum amount you agreed upon, period, dot.
Lest you think I'm being paranoid, let me tell you that I have a friend who had his '72 Corvette Roadster insured with USAA. He went to dinner and came out afterwards and it had been stolen. At the time (quite awhile ago now) it was worth about $20K. USAA gave him $9800. When he asked how they came up with that number, the adjuster told him that he'd looked at every early '70s Corvette advertised in his local autotrader (including some that were basically parts cars), then just averaged the asking prices, and subtracted a small percentage of that average to account for the idea that most cars sell for less than asked.
When he protested, they told him that they've got armies of lawyers, and although he could choose to engage counsel, and might even win, at the end of the day, by the time he had paid his lawyers, he'd likely wind up with less in his pocket than they were offering him at the moment.
Like you, he thought he had made a deal with them ahead of time (he had stated its value at $20K). They explained the fine print to him, he hung his head and walked away with his $9800. :furious:
Don't let that happen to you! If you don't know for a fact that you have an Agreed Value policy, phone up USAA and get clarification. If they can demonstrate to you in writing that they have in fact sold you an Agreed Value policy, that's great. But chances are that you'll soon find yourself shopping with a speciality insurer.
I've been with Parish (now Heacock) for about 15-20 years, and have been very happy with their service. I have had to file a few claims (never my fault thankfully) and they were all settled quickly and very fairly, and it was an easy process as well.