So I priced Lockton Affinity's HPDE Insurance............

............because I get tired of speculation. I prefer facts.

An HPDE at Hallett for the weekend, for my BRZ, assuming $20k value. $173.84 for the 2-day event with a 10% deductible. Bumping the value to $40k raised the premium for the weekend to $287.26.

And you get discounts for buying packages. At $20k in value, a 6 event deal was just over $800.

Then I did a 20k BRZ with $16k in performance and safety modifications. This was $259 for a weekend. 

It's an added expense sure, but not bad at all for the piece of mind. 

I've been going through RLI for HPDE insurance and on a $13k replacement value it's $145/weekend. I think all of the major ones, (RLI, Haggerty, Lockton) were priced within a few bucks of each other, RLI was min $2k deductible everyone else was $2.5k. Since I've got a cheaper car that mattered a bit more than it would to someone in a Porsche. Haven't had to use it and will probably be living the track rat life next year, but haven't regretted it at all. It makes the math a little worse for a weekend but it's way better than the math of wadding up a car.

Interesting.  Do they do single day pricing instead of weekends?

They do, but it isn't a lot cheaper. I think like $110 for 1 day vs $145 for the weekend. 

ProDarwin said:

Interesting.  Do they do single day pricing instead of weekends?

I think they just cover the entire "event" whether its 1 or 2, this is what I'm gathering looking at the website. 

Of course, for specific questions, https://locktonmotorsports.com/contact-us

I know a guy who, had he been able too, would have gladly whipped out his checkbook and paid more than twice that for coverage just before his new Corvette slid into the tire barrier.

That's interesting to know about the weekend pricing; I skipped out on the Track Night In America I was thinking of doing in the Mini when the insurance more or less doubled the cost of the evening. That's just not enough track time for ~$300 or whatever it was going to be total...

I also only got one quote, probably following a link from the TNIA pages. I'm glad to hear that further research is likely to result in useful results.

Yeah, here in OK, our local track Hallett has pretty cheap "HPDE" rates. $140/day I think.........which also means it's gone up like 50% in the last 5 years..........ouch.

That's who my buddy has his trackday insurance with. Its cheaper if you buy 5 event packages and I think events can be multiple days. They also allow a cheaper fee for additional drivers

Jeez, that's quite a bit of money. Especially when you factor in the cost of the track days, tires, and whatnot. Though I guess if you compare it to the cost of wrecking your car and having zero coverage then it might be worth the extra bit of confidence so you can drive at 10/10 instead of holding back.

Though if you do a lot of track days, it might still be a better idea to buy a beater to use as a dedicated track car. An old car is cheaper to fix, cheaper to register, doesn't need any insurance past the bare minimum liability, and you don't feel bad beating on it.

In reply to dannyzabolotny :

That's the circle I keep winding up in. I'd prefer not to use the making-payments daily driver, and insuring it if I do makes sense. OTOH, there are plenty of project cars which could eventually get nice enough that I'd hate to ball one up, but what's the point of building it if I can't exercise it?

A Spec Miata is probably about ideal as a track car for fitness-for-purpose per dollar, but there are other considerations in this irrational pursuit.

That's why I got a $1000 1996 Mustang GT. It's kind of a dog in stock form but I can drive it at 10/10 because I don't care about it at all. It has bad paint and I don't plan on ever fixing it up cosmetically. The trick with a track car is to not make it too nice, otherwise you'll feel bad wrecking it.

I don't want two cars and I don't want a project. Different strokes for different folks.

I merely made this thread because I was tired of seeing "Oh my but HPDE insurance is so expensive." So I double-checked it for myself. And I don't really think it's that bad.

I could do 6 weekends and have coverage for $800. That's 12 track days. I don't think that's bad at all. 

Again, if you're taking an essentially worthless beater out to the track, then this is a product designed for you.

I think its borderline expensive, but definitely would be a factor were I buying a car new enough I would want to insure on track.  Looks to have come down in recent years though based on older threads on this forum.

At some point the price of trackday + consumables + insurance gets high enough that its just easier to buy a seat with a Lemons/Chump/WRL team.

It depends, there is just as many variables to that. You need 1000+ dollars of safety equipment and are going to pay 200-250 dollars an hour for seat time which if the car breaks you may not get in Lemons/Chump/WRL. Most track days around here give you about 2 hours of track time per day, For about 200-250 a day depending on the track

Chin is expensive for track days our VIR one is 549 bucks+ 150 to have a codriver but that is 3.5 hrs of track time per day for a total of 7 hours. 7 hours for 549 bucks vs 7 hours at 200 bucks per hour to run with a Chumpcar Team.

ProDarwin said:

I think its borderline expensive, but definitely would be a factor were I buying a car new enough I would want to insure on track.  Looks to have come down in recent years though based on older threads on this forum.

At some point the price of trackday + consumables + insurance gets high enough that its just easier to buy a seat with a Lemons/Chump/WRL team.

And then I have to travel, wrench/cook/errand runner when not driving, if the car breaks and you can't fix it or don't have spares there goes the money you just spent, etc.  My buddy runs a pretty decent WRL car and team, a seat with him is about $1500. 

Fees/insurance/food/water for a weekend at my local track with something like a hopped BRZ, or Mustang GT or SS 1LE is going to be about $600 for two days without counting tires/brakes/pads. But then I'm also not beholden to maintaining X pace, etc, and all the other stuff that comes with that.

I'm not at the point of driving where I need to race people wheel to wheel in order to enjoy and or develop either. I could probably do years of HPDE or even TT before that got played out for me :P

Those costs actually are what changed my mind I was all ready to just buy seats with people but I didn't realize how much I would spend to do a couple events a year vs how many I could do if I had a track car again

You guys are missing one of the major costs of an HPDE weekend--

I heard this old saw from the BMW CCA president--

Question:  "How much does a track weekend cost?"

Answer:  "$600, a set of tires, and an argument with your spouse."

Racing vs HPDE is apples and oranges. Also don't forget the cost of licensing. The Chump or Lemons license is $50/yr. In the track days I've been to you need an scca or similar license to go in the expert (open lapping) group. What does that license cost to acquire and maintain?

dculberson said:

Racing vs HPDE is apples and oranges. Also don't forget the cost of licensing. The Chump or Lemons license is $50/yr. In the track days I've been to you need an scca or similar license to go in the expert (open lapping) group. What does that license cost to acquire and maintain?

I've never seen that. I have seen where having a license lets you skip qualifications. IE Chin's red group says you need 50+ days of events but both blue and red are "solo" but you can bypass the 50 days requirement with a valid competition license.

Karacticus said:

You guys are missing one of the major costs of an HPDE weekend--

I heard this old saw from the BMW CCA president--

Question:  "How much does a track weekend cost?"

Answer:  "$600, a set of tires, and an argument with your spouse."

I feel sorry for those guys.

Jaynen said:

dculberson said:

Racing vs HPDE is apples and oranges. Also don't forget the cost of licensing. The Chump or Lemons license is $50/yr. In the track days I've been to you need an scca or similar license to go in the expert (open lapping) group. What does that license cost to acquire and maintain?

I've never seen that. I have seen where having a license lets you skip qualifications. IE Chin's red group says you need 50+ days of events but both blue and red are "solo" but you can bypass the 50 days requirement with a valid competition license.

What? I would bet there are multiple, multiple extremely fast and safe drivers in NASA TT that haven't done 50 track days. 

Add in Chin's price..........I think you may have your answer. ;)

dculberson said:

Racing vs HPDE is apples and oranges. Also don't forget the cost of licensing. The Chump or Lemons license is $50/yr. In the track days I've been to you need an scca or similar license to go in the expert (open lapping) group. What does that license cost to acquire and maintain?

https://timetrial.nasaseries.com/frequently-asked-questions-about-nasa-time-trial/

My local track charges a $50/yr HST license, that includes your inspections and such as well. Pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of it.

z31maniac said:

Jaynen said:

dculberson said:

Racing vs HPDE is apples and oranges. Also don't forget the cost of licensing. The Chump or Lemons license is $50/yr. In the track days I've been to you need an scca or similar license to go in the expert (open lapping) group. What does that license cost to acquire and maintain?

I've never seen that. I have seen where having a license lets you skip qualifications. IE Chin's red group says you need 50+ days of events but both blue and red are "solo" but you can bypass the 50 days requirement with a valid competition license.

What? I would bet there are multiple, multiple extremely fast and safe drivers in NASA TT that haven't done 50 track days. 

Add in Chin's price..........I think you may have your answer. ;)

Haha yeah I don't expect to run many Chin events they just happen to be running a 2 day at VIR in the right time window for us this time.

Jaynen said:

dculberson said:

Racing vs HPDE is apples and oranges. Also don't forget the cost of licensing. The Chump or Lemons license is $50/yr. In the track days I've been to you need an scca or similar license to go in the expert (open lapping) group. What does that license cost to acquire and maintain?

I've never seen that. I have seen where having a license lets you skip qualifications. IE Chin's red group says you need 50+ days of events but both blue and red are "solo" but you can bypass the 50 days requirement with a valid competition license.

Is the red group "open passing, no point by"?  That would explain the 50+/competition license requirement.