Pete, standard insurance will only cover you for the car’s market value at the time of claim. It sounds to me as if you have arranged a different sort of policy known as Agreed Value.

How this works is that if a standard version of your car is worth, say £20k, that’s the max they will pay out for total loss. If however it’s agreed with the insurer that yours is worth £30k because of, for example, outstanding condition or extras then you can cover it for that amount. It’s likely to cost you more in premiums as you are covered for a higher amount. It sounds to me as if your insurer has agreed your car is worth more and has insured and charged you accordingly.

There is a wealth of info online if you Google “agreed value insurance”.

Yes, you seem to have moved from traditional 'market value' insurance to 'agreed value' insurance. Lots of owners of classic cars have it.

I'm surprised you haven't been asked for an owners club valuation to support the value, but maybe they don't need it below a certain level.

I may well move to agreed value for my mx-5 when it hits ten years old (next year).

You tried to get them to think. They have computers for that.

If you persist you are likely to annoy them and it will end up costing you money.

Example : In The Yook 20 plus years ago, I was collecting quotes for Maestro vans. Diesels always cost significantly more to insure 3PFT than petrol models of higher horsepower, probably because the cubic capacity was higher.

I tried to get them to think about that, and the best they could do was higher repair costs, though they couldnt explain why this was relevent on a 3PFT policy.