As an insurer, I'm happy to weigh in here: In a long run, you should always insure the risk of third-party damage, but not your own. Insuring your own damage may make sense in a short run, but never in a long run. The insurer will always win the bet. Never insure the small damage, absolutely always only the worst case: Excess of loss policies are usually the solution. If you keep these few points, relationship with an insurer can last a lifetime. Cheers Carmrades

Robert is one of the most laid back and professional persons I ever listened to. No bullshit but crystal clear logic. Regards insurance I would keep the balls low and such topics should not be discussed too often as insurances which don’t exclude the Nürburgring so far might rethink their policies.

The best insurance as said.. drive within your means, and don't try to impress anyone. 👍

I have been on the Nurburgring for over 1500 laps since 1997. And used fast cars and slow cars - and have a racing licence. Everything from Nissan GTR to Suzuki Swifts. When I use a rental, I always think of worst case scenario. If you cannot pay the damages, do not go out on track. Period. Therefore I mostly pick non expensive but well prepared cars. I think your insurance explanation was good. However, there is an elephant in the room. I see you Misha borrow cars from people all the time. Do you check if the car is insured for Nurburgring every single time? Do you read the owners insurance papers. For instance in Norwegian… However good driver you are, an oil spill makes most of us helpless. Having fun is great until it is not so fun. Thanks for a great channel!-)

Allianz may be a little expensive but they are one of the few insurance companies that cover the Nürburgring. Thankfully, I never needed their services but then again I haven't been to Nürburg much these last 2 years.

Such an important discussion! I truly appreciate when you and Robert discuss these types of things. Thank you to both of you! I'm a retired airline pilot and teach pilots to fly biz jets. I have owners of those jets that self insure for the same reasons!

Roberts business discussions, and approach to treating people with respect and understanding is such a wonderful and refreshing change from how so many people approach business. I can also say that I have learned a lot and grown in my own approach to business and business interface due to this.

Important message you have here, also for the people running a “shitbox” at 11/10 during TF, thinking they have managed their own risk. Use TF as intended or book a track-day.

I've always wondered how vehicle Insurance on the ring worked. Sounds like a very expensive game to play!!! Thanks for the video guys very informative 👍

Finally a video with Robert. This was a very informative video. You guys made several good points.

11:10 something I always believed on, you might get the feeling of driving fast in a fast car but you never can learn the basics of how driving a racetrack. Im going to take my very own car to the local track, which is luckily almost no exposed barriers and most of it is surrounded by gravel and sand and I know im NOT* going to be insured there by the company. However, after running in the rental cars at the track itself which are WAY fasters, I realised that I can really learn better how to drive in a slower car. Thats a really good way to practice you skills, especially if you know the techniques of driving on a track, and that makes me feel safer going with my car than the rentals (which btw none of them were insured, every damage even considerably small one would be on the customer). I came to realisation that I actually do want to drive my car on track, even if it ain't insured at all for things like that but its something I just want to do and know the consequences.

That is why, for my cars (two cars, two different insurance companies in France), I called the insurance companies and specifically talked about taking my car on track, on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Both companies told me that, as long as it is not a "timed session" or a competition, I am insured with a "third party contract" (damages on my own vehicle aren't covered, but damages to third parties are covered). And I'm absolutely okay with that.

Thank you for clarifying the whole insurance situation. As it seems only rich people will be able to rent high powered vehicles. Normal people will have to pay for years in the case that a crash takes place , despite the 50% that one will be called to cover there are also track damages added. Εven the tow truck costs 600€

Appreciate the transparency and responsibility you take making sure people are making smart choices when doing business with your company. Hopefully I will be coming to Germany in 2022 for the N24 if they allow fans, and you better believe the first thing I want to do is going on a lap with Apex.

Very nice to see Robert up and about and another very thoughtful discussion.

6:30 Robert gracefully 'forgets' about loss of use, that is also 'eaten' by Apex. So yeah that 50% liability is in fact very favorable towards the customer. Adding to that that none of the Apex cars are stock, so replacement is not as easy as going to a Porsche dealer and buying another Cayman.

Very informative video 👍🏾 a lot more people just need to take note. Insurance is there for a reason

As of part of my job, my recommandation is 3rd part 100% / own risk only with high self excess: makes a smaller risk to the insurer so he follows you, makes you keep your mind, and keeps the pricing low. But in case of oil on track or overcrash, you can support a 5 to 20k excess depending on the car value, the rest is covered enough so you land on your feet.

My biggest problem with the Nordschleife is that you cannot get track insurance for the place. In the UK if you have a crash on a track the cost to the track is paid for out of the track’s finances and everybody is responsible for the repairs to their own car. The cost of trackday insurance in the UK is not a lot (£100-150, with 10% excess, on a £20k car) so clearly the risk of having an accident at the Nordschleife is orders of magnitude higher in the eyes of the insurers.

cool informative vid, but off topic just have to say man, the area around the Nurburgring is so beautiful, I love that road up through Welcherath, missing it badly with all recent events, cannot wait to get back out there!

This video is spot on. It’s exactly was I was trying to communicate to others in the comments in the gt4 video. Apex not only need to factor in asset loss in its risk profile but loss of future profits with vehicle downtime, cancellations of bookings including from hotel if a service can no longer be provided. Hats off to Apex for looking at the big picture regarding insurance, I wish more companies had this approach. Ps. It is sooo much more satisfying passing someone in a supercar using a diesel golf. Because there’s nothing they can say or do but except the fact that someone is a faster driver than them. 😂

This is an excellent video, really appreciate you doing it. I believe you can get complete cover for race cars while racing, albeit with significant deductibles. For example, I was told that GT3 cars competing in the British GT Championship, such as McLaren 720S GT3 which is almost £500K, can be insured for around £20K/event with a deductible around the same level. This information may or may not be correct, but there are definitely models in place to price these risks.

This was the best in car audio I've ever heard Misha! TC

Nicely explained guys, great video!

Very good video as usual, i got caught out a few years ago with the insurance limitations. I thought i had checked the terms thoroughly and found no mention or Nürburgring or nordschleife. but what was buried and i hadn't seen was a condition excluding tourist driving on any circuit. fortunately living in Germany and using a good broker since makes it a little easier.

Even though i don't own any car at least i got the knowledge on how to drive it and run it from this kind of videos and it's enjoyable as well, so i'd say it's a really solid video👍

What a excellent vid. Very interesting and opened my eyes.

Although i have done many trackdays at home and driven the Ring on PC thousands of laps , but before i do my first lap on the Ring with my Corvette i will take some taxi laps with you guys. Also to all people doing trackdays do have your car checked out properly fluids cooling brakes before doing any of these things , at home your track is like 2km and you do some 2-3 hot laps not including warm up and cool down , the Ring is 22km so it will be hard on your car.

Hallo Misha, nice explained vídeo !!

Nice to see Robert here… i missed him when i was at apex… next time i hope.

Good info. As a normal person you need to read your contract if touristenfahrten or the Nürburgring is not excluded you are fine. Your insurance company WILL drop you afterwards tho and with so many insurance companys excluding the ring. You better not crash your car if it's insured. But for example the HUK still does not explicitly exclude the nordschleife and touristenfahrten

Great video as usual. For an Aussie your in car is disconcerting as you are driving on the wrong side of the road! Can I also add that for those travelling from other countries, they may want to also check their travel insurance as there can be exclusions and excesses in those.

When I did the Nurburgring I rented the cheapest car to drive. First time there only for a few laps. Was not out to impress anyone just to say I have driven the Green Hell. And it ended up being a rainy day, which was a good thing as there were fewer cars. Also looked at the rental car insurance part for the regular car that we had and it said the insurance would be void on a Unregulated toll road, the Nurburgrng

I've been wondering when Robert was going to make another video. It's been ages! Enjoy the weekend guys!

It’s hard to stomach on top of all of the other expenses that come with putting a car on the track (track day ticket, tires, brakes, oil changes etc…) but ultimately it’s worth it. I pay $220-280 per day (in the US) for track day insurance with a 10% deductible on my M2 Competition. Too many things can go wrong outside of your control.

Welcherath looks so pretty :v The whole Nürburg area looks pretty, would be a joy to just cruise around on those roads...

As far as I know German third party car insurance (Haftpflicht) for privatly used cars have to cover Touristenfahrten by law as it is a public toll road. Newer contracts can and usually will exclude the NS from the coverage of the own car (Vollkasko).

Super interesting, thanks!

Very well said. Insurance companies are also a business looking for profits. They will only cover you if they can still make a profit. They will NOT take a loss to cover your losses...

I want to teleport my 2001 E46 ZHP swapped 330ci from the united statees to this roads your driving on in this video, llooks way more relaxing and fun to drive on scenic bendy and whindy roads over looking the farm fields and house lines. magnific!!!

Good to see Robert in a video. Insurance, Nobody likes to think about it, but you gotta have it so why complain. What's the saying, you gotta pay to play, if you want to race/ track your car, enjoy it if you can pay for it. Planes, boats, and track cars are holes you dump your $ into.

Thanks for the info, that's definitely good information for people who are thinking of running the ring and definitely a big concern of mine. The track specific insurance is interesting. For me, since i only have shitboxes, i insure them for 24k, 10% deductible for about 160 USD a weekend for a DE or 200 USD for a Time Attack event. That's stated value, so if i royally bin it, 21,600 is what i'll get from the insurance. 3 strikes and you're out sort of policy (per year).

Awesome info, danke.

Nice to see Robert back on the channel....lol

This makes me appreciate living somewhere where I can pay 400$ for a track day and know if I bin the car or cause any other damage I'm completely covered and the insurance will pay me out the full agreed upon value of the car. I could never imagine wanting to take my gt4 somewhere where I could potentially lose tens of thousands of dollars.

great video!!

I guess I am lucky with my insurance company - I explitly asked about coverage on the Nordschleife. They said I am covered for the value of my car, plus up whatever amount in third party liability. You should have seen their faces when I asked "What if I spill coolant on the track and 10 supercars are totalled because of it?" They hadn't tought about that scenario...

Cool video 👍🏻

So, for example what happens if I rent a car from Apex and someone crashes on me? Do I still have to pay for the repair of the Apex car even if I didn't have any kind of fault?

One thing people should also know is that when insurance companies write excess is say 30000 Euros some people assume any crash will cost them that. When the matter of the fact is any rental company that cares about their customers and their reputation will only charge you the full excess if their cost to deal with the situation is at least that. If you break a bumper that cost the company 2000 Euros to replace you are going to get charged 2000 Euros. Not 30000 Euros.

Best insurance is using your brains. Having driven some hundreds of laps on the PS prepared for some basic track knowledge. While this year I took and still will take my Beetle to the track and learn for real life I hope, I can take my Audi next year. With the Audi I would quickly run out of track and talent at the moment. Fundamentally, as my sensei puts it: „Learn to do your techniques slowly and thoroughly. Only then you will master speed“. Anyway, I prefer taking the car I drive daily over rental cars, because I know how it handles. For the crazy stuff I come back to you guys next year for a taxi drive.

One question: what if I decide to NOT insure myself and drive very carefully and somebody else crashes into me? will this become a problem for me or will the person causing the accident be fully responsible?

Beautiful roads

very informative

Robert is back.. the inteligent Robot 😁👏

I drove my 2001 e46 325Ci SA 4 laps on the ring.

Living in France, my insurer (AXA) refuse to acknowledge that the nurburgring is covered but agree that the nurb is not excluded in my contract so it should be covered. Fun facts : If I ask one more time I think he will manage to exclude this track from my contract ... But after 5 phone calls i'm still not sure if i'm covered or not. Honestly it's a shame since I only try to prepare my trip in a responsible manner....

It takes cojones of a certain size to hand over the keys to the general public who manage to under perform as drivers even in the crap cars they drive irl.

Good evening Carmrades!

Never assume anything with insurance. Allways check specifics and disclose all to your insurance company for instance if your doing Nurburgring laps. Have to be realistic and pay more as the risk goes up. In UK there are company's that will insure driving on the Ring in your own car. Apex car rental insurance system seems very good and more than fair.

The most corrupt thing I had happen to me was when I rented a Mercedes Sprinter van from Dockx Rental in Belgium. I paid full price for a whole day plus their biggest tier of insurance, only used the van to throw stuff out 500 meters further. I didn’t hit anything and the car was very dirty to begin with. When bringing the van back they claimed that there was a yellow stripe in the back that wasn’t there. Long story short they sent me a quote from their shop, which by coincidence is a shop owned by the same company that is 25€ underneath the ‘bonus’ so you have to pay out of pocket plus they took my 500 euro deductible. We’re talking about a dirty old Mercedes Sprinter with 80k KMS

For a second I thought the thumbnail was for the channel " Arthur tussik " Have a look at the work he does.

Indeed! First: Choose a car that fits your financial capabilities. Second: Choose a car that fits your driving capabilities Third: Crashing while driving on track: the question is when not if!

I've done many laps of Nürburgring on simulator and can easily make sub-7 min lap using some supercars before actually going to the tack in real world. But when I rented a GTI and drove on the real track, I realized this is totally different from simulation. Nürburgring, in my opinion, is probably the most technical and most dangerous track in the world. I understand why there is basically no insurance company willing to include this track in their policy because it's very often and very easy for accident to happen here. If you really know something about performance driving and racing, you don't want to drive a 600+ hp real wheel drive car on this track for the first time.

Hey man please make a playlist about your Bmw M2.

11:32 on the racetracker picture from me in a GT3RS nobody sees if I get overtaken by a Golf. I would rather have a slow lap in the GT2RS than having a fast lap in a Golf.

Great video, as in most things in life there is no free lunch

Good video

Once upon a time insurance companies would insured weren’t so smart. Streets of Willow springs is actually a street that happens to be part of a track. If someone had a incident there, some made claims and the insurance company paid out. Now if you are taking a drivers safety /vehicle training class no timing (BMW North America) most insurance companies pay for damages

And as it will be with all foreign cars? Do you have idea? Nice video 💯👍

Just one more question: have you guys thought about "self insuring"? I recently drive the Polo for 2 laps, and asked if the deductible could be lowered. Have you thought about would be a good price point to bring it down to half, or zero? I have no idea, and with zero deductible people will drive riskier of course. But over 100s of laps, that could pay out, and it would be fine if you guys even made money out of it, since won't be a required thing to pay for.

i want to go go there but this video kinda tamper my excitement, i guess if some day i go there i will buy a shit box so i dont go broke. was a nice video and eye opening

For most German policies that exclude the 'ring, do they exclude only collision insurance, or liability as well? I can't imagine taking a car out there with no 3rd party liability coverage! My 20k car could wipe out 2MM in other cars! If liability is excluded, do umbrella liability policies tend to cover this?

If you get nocked of the track by another car, what will happen? And do they pay fix or replace the car, the barricade and loss of use?

@1:44 pretty scary:) Cheers Robin

misha what do you think about full casco insurance ?

The sky is beautiful

Well explained, I’m starting to understand why companies have insurances set up this way. There are always choices you have to make and balance risks and rewards. If the excess feels too high, don’t rent the car. It’s just not very wise for a person with regular income to rent a premium sports car, but if say 40k doesn’t hurt you much, then go for it. But if you cant afford the risk but do crash the car, at least have the balls to borrow the money from somewhere and pay back the next 10 years or so. That scenario sucks ass but that is what people agree to when signing the rental papers…

That is it 👌👏

I feel like you touch on this subject quite frequently. Don't smash car. Smashed car cost Hugh money. I have reconsidered coming to apex because of learning about your policies. Was a dream but mishas POV is enough to fill my nurburgring ambitions.

I never knew insurance could drop you just because you do some trackdays...if you never claim anything, why would they? I emailed my insurance and they don't cover the nurburgring or any trackday, it makes sense...so if I crash i'll pay for the damage and won't try claim anything. It just makes sense to me...

Hmm having just checked my policy it says use on any track.. It could be argued then that as TF is classed as a public toll road in Germany id be covered. No where does it mention the Nurburgring/Nordschleife No doubt with it been English insurance they would try say it's a race track

What’s the legality of “self insuring” on the ring? In the UK you have to have insurance to legally drive on public roads. If the ring counts as a public road during TF, is it legal to drive your own car there if they specifically exclude the Nurburgring from your cover even if you plan to pay for any incidents yourself?

off topic: what a beautiful day to drive around in the eifel. 🤩

Can a customer insure themselves against the excess?

Very nice town tour! What is Robert's secret for his amazing coolness and laid back attitude.

Another great video. It's a surprise one insurance company doesnt specialise in the 'Ring? People will drive and they will crash. Better the devil you know... there's an oportunity there?

Ok, what about the insurance/ excess if something happens in a rental car with traction control in sport mode or switched off? On AMG/ M/ Porsche track events (at least in Poland), you're not allowed to switch the TC off, because the insurance will not cover the damage in case of an accident. I'm asking, beacuse last Sunday I took some laps in a lovely M4 from Apex, and sad to say, but the traction control was so strict, it kinda ruined the experience... I'm not saying I want to drive it like Kubica did, but honestly sometimes I struggled to overtake cars like 320i in straight sections... But as a good citizen, I obeyed the rules. So, the question is- if something happens and it turns out I was driving in MDM mode, will it make any difference in terms of insurance/ excess?

Everything in life has a cost. If I couldn't replace the cost of the car I was driving on the ring then I wouldnt drive it. I prefer to be passenger and let you guys take the risk and contribute towards your cost/profit on a fixed fee basis. people don't understand risk and cost for both insurers and operators. essentially if you acn't afford, then don't do it. Insurers have to make a bean too!!!

out of curosity, can anyone tell me how insurance works on the autobahn? Is it speed limited or anything like that?

That M2 thumb looks exactly like mine after a track day :(

Duidelijk.

How are your cars insured on public roads, like the way to the nürburgring?

So does this mean you sold the pranged Cayman for 26k? (If the customer paid 39k, then you are roughly valuing the car at 78k and saying you lost 13k)

Not a risk I'd fancy taking...£500 for a nice track day potentially landing you with a £50k bill! From the video, I'm not clear where liability would ultimately lie in the event that the driver were receiving tuition particularly in the event of misdirection or a failure on the part of the tutor to recognise an evident lack of ability on the part of the driver.

simple solution you tracked a car, you pay for all damages you cause. another solution is that you have to put down a minimum 100, 000 dollars deposit first before you are allowed on the track. with the deposit you can weed out the idiots that can’t pay. i also think that sports car insurance is high enough and it needs a higher deductible in the five figure range.

if only the cars are allowed on track that have coverage on the ring it would be a private track for the germans.... If i could i would get one 🤷🏻‍♂️

My insurance specifically states it won't cover different kinds of "speed, endurance, ... contests", so official races. I'd say touristenfahrten wouldn't fall under this?

I used to want to come to Apex when Covid went away but this video has put me off ever coming near a rental car. Essentially what your saying is unless your ready to risk 10s or even 100s of thousands of euros you shouldn't do it. Unless your well off with life savings ready to burn the regular person is not gonna be able to afford to crash, because it will ruin their life and leave them in debt for years.

If i were to travel to Germany from the USA i wouldn't drive a car i would enjoy myself and get some taxi laps with someone familiar with the track that could safely push the limits, i have a Silverado and a Camry neither of which i push the limits on, so driving a high performance car on a strange racetrack wouldn't be an option for me