OpenTrack – Drive More. Drive Better.

Brett Larson - Head of Sales for Open Track

Your Umbrella Doesn't Cover You On-Track! OpenTrack Offers On-Track Liability Insurance. Concentrate On Driving, Not the "What If's" - Superior HPDE & Track Day Insurance. Up to $500,000 Car Value. Founder Oversight. Insured in Minutes. Paperless Process.

Contact: Brett Larson at brett.larson@opentrack.com | (612) 601-1034 | N/A

          

• Origin Story: Who/What/When/Where/How was OpenTrack formed? 
• What kinds of Motorsports does OpenTrack cover?
• Let’s get down to some specific listener questions about your coverage:
  • What about an incident in the paddock? What about in transit? Is the trailer covered? What if something happens while the car is on the trailer, etc. 
  • What drivers are covered under the policy. When I’ve called I’ve been told that anyone that drives the car is covered, but when registering an event in the policy online I must list drivers and can only add two.
  • When is fire damage covered by track insurance? I’ve heard that a car that catches fire is only covered if the fire happens in connection with a collision.
  • If a car has a declared value that is higher than the KBB value and it is totaled, what is the maximum payout? Would it be the full declared value or KBB value plus the value (replacement cost?) of the modifications?
  • We’ve also heard that OpenTrack is the only Track Insurance provider that will cover vehicles with a declared value over 150k?
  • How much personal liability insurance is provided when track insurance for a vehicle is purchased?
  • Does track insurance cover the driver’s liability for damage done to the track (i.e., will OpenTrack pay for tire barrier/wall repairs or track cleanup?).
  • In the event of a “Total Loss”, how can the owner retain the damaged vehicle for salvage or parts?
• How does someone sign up for OpenTrack Insurance? What are the costs/plans? Are there packages? How do you determine “declared value?”
• OpenTrack also offers the “Drive Better” program, what’s that all about?

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related. There’s always a reason not to do something, and in our case, it’s that gnawing, clawing feeling of what if holding us back from trying Motorsports. We were all there once.

Many of us aren’t anymore, and that’s a result of organizations like Open Track that make it possible to have total coverage of your prized vehicle no matter what happens at an event. Open Track’s, flexible track day. Insurance solutions allow drivers to do what they love most. Get more time behind the wheel and on track from single event policies to 365 day coverage.

You get the insurance you need when you need it. And with us tonight to discuss why you should protect yourself and your vehicle investment with Open Track is Brett Larson, head of sales for Open Track Insurance. So Brett, welcome, welcome [00:01:00] to Break Fix. Thanks, Erics. Thanks for inviting me. Like every good break fix episode, we always start with the who, what, where, when, and why.

So let’s talk about the origin story behind open track. Yeah, yeah. It’s a pretty good one, great place to start. So open track is, I’d say in its infancy, even though we’ve been around for. About eight years now. But back in 2013, Ben Phillips, who is our C E O and our creator was at the time a private client producer, and he had a unique inquiry or request from someone that asked him to find a market for commercial lines coverage for Palm Beach International Raceway.

As he was researching carrier options for that inquiry, he realized there was also. A need or a gap for the tracks private club members and other track day enthusiasts who were tracking at that club on the weekends. And so what he had found is that the existing carriers that were offering coverage for track day, it was limited.

They were limited to just up to a hundred k, single [00:02:00] vehicle value. They were only offering coverage for sanctioned H P D E events. That’s high performance driver education. They were only offering higher deductibles. And there were only offering single event coverage. And so Ben saw that gap and he said to himself, these people are trying to get out to the track.

And some of them are going often. There’s some of them also that were driving higher valued vehicles. He also had read some research at the time indicating that the number of drivers and the hobby were in fact growing at a pretty good pace. Howard Schultz, the c e o of Starbucks once said, Starbucks serves as a third place between home and work.

An extension between people’s lives at a time when people have no place to go. Ben saw the same situation happening with track day enthusiasts. They were going home work, and their third place was the track. So he began doing additional market research, extensive market research. He talked to drivers, he was talking to motor sports enthusiasts, anyone he could find that was connected into this [00:03:00] lifestyle and sport to gather feedback.

And one of the conversations he had at the time was a cold call. Actually to Nick Candy, who was associated with the Aston Martin car club. Ben talked to him for more than an hour. Who wants to have a conversation about insurance for an hour? Right? I mean, that’s just the first question I have from this conversation.

Bill. Ben knew there was a great passion for this sport, for this hobby, but something was missing, and that’s the point where the spark for open track was lit. So Ben decided he was gonna build the product. That would fit the lifestyle of the passionate and serious drivers and be something they actually wanted as well.

People need to buy insurance, and of course they benefit from it, but most insurance products aren’t built for them and they don’t desire to purchase it. Open track is a business. Was built to break that mold, so we did exactly the opposite of the other carrier. We insured only vehicles greater than a hundred thousand dollars value.

We ensured all track time that was non-competitive. Regardless of whether the event [00:04:00] was sanctioned, we offered a low deductible and we offered annual unlimited membership. Now, initially, because Ben was a producer, he thought that this product would be an appetizer to bring in clients for cross-sell opportunities, home auto umbrella, you know, those basic coverages focused on private client where this kind of plays.

However, he quickly found that open track was a self-sustaining business built around the lifestyle of passionate drivers who wanted to drive faster and drive better. We started getting comments from clients such as, this is the first time I’ve purchased an insurance product that I feel was built specifically for me.

In the early stages, and based on actual client feedback, the open track product and form was iterated 20 plus times. We took client feedback very seriously. In 2018, we dropped down to ensure vehicles as low as $30,000 value. Additionally, we added track day liability coverage, and in 2021 we launched. Our drive better program, which includes free driver coaching, access to hobby [00:05:00] specific webinars, and some other things on demand.

While the pace of iteration has slowed down, our desire to continue enhancing our offering and to provide greater value to our clients has not changed. We’ll continue to put the client at the center of our universe and we’re going to try to help people drive more and drive better. Wow. There’s a lot to unpack there.

And we have some very detailed questions that some of our audience has asked us to relay to you, and we’ll go through that in a q and a type of session here. And I think one of the first ones that needs to be addressed is, as you guys have grown, do you still only cover H B D E or do you cover other types of motorsports as well?

So open track will. Cover any track time on road courses on our covered tracks that is non-competitive. So obviously that’s gonna include the H P D E events, but it also includes, and this is where we really become competitive, is the private track days. So there’s a lot of private track clubs popping up throughout the country.

There are [00:06:00] memberships, like a golf membership, like you go to the golf club, these drivers are going to their track. And so as long as the driver is tracking at one of our 120 covered tracks, Most in the US, but some is well in Canada and they’re not participating in a competitive event, they’d be eligible for coverage.

So one of the other questions that comes up a lot is, what about an incident in the paddock? Is that covered? So our product is on track only, so it’s on the track surface. Our products do not cover. While in the paddock though, there are products available in the marketplace for the paddock as well as if it’s a, a vehicle that they’re bringing on the track, which I’ll back up.

We actually do cover both regular road use vehicles as well as track only vehicles. So if that vehicle is a road use vehicle, that driver probably has a policy in place to cover them for that. That would cover them up to getting to the track. There is that bit of a gap in the middle for the paddock.

There are products out there in the marketplace that would cover that. So that answers the next question, which is [00:07:00] does the policy cover the vehicle in transit? Is the trailer covered? What if something happens while the car is on the trailer? Things like that. So that’s probably a no, right? Correct. Yes.

It’s not covered until it hits the track surface with our products. When you talk about the policy, not only does it usually cover the car, but it also covers the driver. So one of the other questions that gets fielded is what drivers are covered under the policy? Because when folks have called, they’ve been told that anyone that drives the car is covered.

But when registering for the event policy online, you have to list all the drivers. Maybe there’s a maximum you can set there. How does that work for open track? Our products, we do not limit. Or cap, the number of drivers, additional drivers that can be added to our policies, and that’s either our daily policy or our annual program.

No additional costs for adding drivers. The only limitation that we have is that the drivers must be at least 25 years old. We do not insure anyone less than that. That [00:08:00] said, if a policy holder is being professionally instructed, the instructor would be covered automatically as a driver without having to have them be specifically added to the policy for any other additional driver situations.

However, the person must be specifically listed for coverage to apply. Let’s say there’s an instance where. A coach or an instructor is driving the policy holder’s vehicle, maybe showing them some laps, doing some things like that, and something occurs, whether it’s mechanical, there’s an incident, whatever.

Does the policy suddenly change? Let’s say that instructor is not listed on that person’s policy either, right? They didn’t add them. How does that all play out? If the instructor is in the process of instructing them, then they are covered automatically as a driver. For any damages that would occur to that vehicle.

Another one of our listeners asks, when is fire damage covered by track insurance? I’ve heard that if a car catches fire, it is only covered if the fire [00:09:00] happens in connection with a collision. True or false? That is true. Yes. Our policy will provide coverage for damage to the vehicle only when caused by a collision.

Mechanical failure or other similar losses would not be a A covered cause of loss? Yes. So if you blow a fuel line or something happens that you’re on your own, at that point it’s not covered? Correct. Another question that came across our desk. If a car has a declared value that is higher than the Kelly Blue Book value, and it is totaled, what is the maximum payout?

Would it be the full declared value or Kelly Blue Book value plus parts replacement? Costs of the modification? So it gets really complicated with track cars. So how do you guys determine what the full value is? So our policy is written on a stated amount basis. And what that means is that in the event of a covered loss, we will pay out the lesser of the cost to repair or replace.

So if a vehicle is determined to be a total loss at the time of a claim, the maximum that would be paid out is the coverage limit on the [00:10:00] policy minus the deductible Of course. If the value of the vehicle at the time of the loss then is less than the coverage limit on the policy, and the vehicle is determined to be a total loss, then the client would be indemnified up to the amount of the actual value of the vehicle, which might not be that limit that they have on their policy.

This is why it is very imperative. That vehicles are insured to the most accurate replacement cost or market value, including any upgrades or enhancements. So our goal is to indemnify the driver so that they have the opportunity to replace that vehicle if they so choose. However, we don’t want them to be over-insured and paying for coverage they don’t need.

So reading between the lines there, basically you need to come to the table and make sure you’ve saved all of your receipts when you come up with that. Estimated value of your vehicle, right? It’s not just, well, it was a $4,000 Miata. There’s $25,000 worth of parts on top of it, making it, let’s say a $30,000 car, correct?

Yeah. We won’t need that for [00:11:00] policy issuance. That’s not part of our quoting or issuance process. But at the time of a claim, the vehicle owner would want to have that on hand to provide to the claims representative to provide a smooth process. So you talked earlier in the intro about the $30,000 entry point, that lower limit, is that still the case or has been dropped More and a segue from this conversation where we look at the total value of a race car, right?

It’s worth, or a track day car. It’s worth more in parts than it is whole. So does that play into, I can get my base $1,500 Miata. Up to 30 grand because let’s say it’s an s s M car that I took to a de, well, first of all, our lowest limit we offer is $30,000. Now, in the event of a loss, going back to my prior statement, we are not going to just automatically pay out that 30 k.

It’s still the lesser of cost. To repair or replace. So while we don’t go down below 30 K for a coverage limit, we can ensure vehicles that are of a lower value. The [00:12:00] driver would just have to know that we’re gonna pay up to the amount of the actual value on the vehicle. So what’s the deductible generally, right.

Our deductible on our daily policy program is 10% of the vehicle value. So that’s a flat amount multiplied by the value that they’ve chosen at coverage issuance. And then on the annual program, it’s a 5% deductible except for a few unique situations where it will still be the 10% and that would be McLarens.

Are still 10% on our annual program and vehicles greater than $300,000 are still a 10% deductible. So you’re looking at basically a minimum deductible of 3000 bucks if you’re coming in at that lowest threshold. Now, obviously it climbs from there with certain caveats for the really. Much more expensive vehicles.

150,000 and above, let’s just say. Correct. As you mentioned and we’ve heard before, open Track is the only track insurance provider that will cover vehicles with a declared value over $150,000. Is that true? [00:13:00] False? Yes, very true. Will insure vehicles up to a value on a single vehicle of $500,000. So as far as our coverage is concerned, we do not require that the vehicle be a registered vehicle.

We’ll cover registered vehicles and we’ll cover non-registered vehicles. The true track only cars, for instance, rush Auto Works. The Rush Sr is a non road legal vehicle. We’ll cover it. We will cover the G GT two rss, anything that’s not road licensed, and it could be a, an eligible vehicle for the road, but it may not be road titled and ready.

And so we will cover those. No problem. Those can be in our program. We don’t require it as long as they’re at an H P D event. As long as it’s non-competition, though, there are some vehicle types that we’ll not insure at this point. We do not insure Ferrari and we do not insure any open wheeled vehicles or formula cars, F cars, whatever you wanna call them, Ferrari specifically, we did ensure them until fairly recently.

However, what [00:14:00] ultimately put the nail in the coffin is that Ferrari accounted for very low percentage of our premiums, but a fairly high percentage of our losses. So that’s Ferrari across the board. So even if you have, let’s say, a Magnum PI 3 0 8, it’s not covered. It doesn’t matter what year it is. It doesn’t matter the year or the model.

And then on the open wheel side, not just F cars, but does this also include things like the KTM crossbow, the aerial atom, things like that, that are more open cockpit, open wheel type of vehicles? No, we will cover those cuz they are a semi-closed wheel. They’re not completely open. So we do the aerials and the cas and, and things like that.

You will cover those? Yes. Good to know. I mean, that’s a little asterisk on that open wheel idea, but, okay, so no formula cars, but then again, you’re not gonna see too many F class vehicles at a de either, right? Usually they don’t run at those types of events, not at de, but because we will cover private track clubs ah, and track them at those clubs.

A lot of those members do have those [00:15:00] types of vehicles. So another question from one of our listeners. How much personal liability insurance is provided when track insurance for a vehicle is purchased? I’ll start by saying, we are the only track day insurance product or products. That offer true liability coverage.

We have liability limits of 1 million and 2 million available. But I’d like to clarify this. Coverage is not mandatory. Drivers can purchase our physical damage coverage on its own if they’d like to, and then add the liability if they’re concerned with that exposure. Does open Track’s insurance cover the driver’s liability for damage done to the track?

For example, will open track pay for a tire barrier or tire wall repairs to the track or any sort of cleanup? Yes. If the client has purchased our liability coverage, it would cover damage to track property, including damage to a wall or the track surface. Additionally, it will also apply or cover fluid cleanup.

Do you [00:16:00] submit that as a separate claim or does that get submitted at the same time you’re putting in? Obviously there’s gonna be a collision claim here too. Are they all under one transaction or two separate ones? It would be a single claim transaction if it is in conjunction with. A collision? Yes. In the event of a total loss, how can the owner retain the damaged vehicle for salvage or for parts?

Each claim is unique. I’ll start by saying that, and so I cannot provide specifics. However, I can say that the client does have the opportunity to negotiate keeping their vehicle if and when it has been determined to be a total loss. So there is that negotiation process that takes place with the claims representative.

So this last one here is part of our 20 questions section of this, of this interview. It’s a little complicated, it’s multi-part, so hang on. One of our listeners writes What or who does the insurance cover? Does it cover the facility owner, the event organizers, third party me against what? [00:17:00] Respectively facilities, damage, harm and lawsuit, medical injury.

I feel like I’m watching one of those infomercials right now and the list continues to go on and on and on. So I guess it’s further refinement of. The caveats of the plan and what it can and can’t cover. Obviously we talked about being able to cover the tire barriers and the fluid cleanup, which is awesome.

So what other things are maybe buried in this policy that could be covered? Yeah, so the physical damage portion, uh, of the policy is pretty straightforward in that it covers damage to the insured’s vehicle from a collision while on track. The liability coverage covers property or bodily injury damages to a third party, so it’s going to extend for any damages that if I were a driver, that I cause to others who are external to my vehicle.

So pretty much everything external to my vehicle could be covered under that liability policy if I’m found liable for that damage. Additionally, the liability coverage does include legal defense coverage that would protect the client [00:18:00] in the event that they are brought into a lawsuit for their actions on track that coverage is provided without regard to fault, for no fault of their own.

They could be sued, but they still have the need to defend themselves. Our liability coverage is going to provide that defense coverage, and I get the facility and event organizer question as well because sometimes the track will pass fees on to the H P D E organizer and then the org. Organizer will pass those fees on again to the person that was involved in the incident.

Again, like we talked about submitting, you know, a separate transaction for the tire barrier and the fluid cleanup. If some other fees were passed on, are those also covered by the track insurance? I think that would have to come down to a very specific claims situation and a claims representative.

Possibly an expert would have to weigh in on that. It really comes down to liability. You know, from a liability standpoint, what were they responsible for? Did they do something that caused damage to someone else? So that’s why I say it has to come back to a specific claim situation, [00:19:00] because that gets into some legality as far as how the contract reads.

Absolutely. And then part of that, just to split hairs a little bit, because in this complex question that was posed, there was also the medical injury to themselves. You talked about to the other person at that point. That’s where you say asterisk. This is covered by your a, d and D or accidental death and dismemberment, or your life insurance and your personal medical insurance.

If something were to happen to you, let’s say the cause of the incident. Yes. So anyone inside of, again, I’ll put myself in the driver’s seat. If I’m in my vehicle, anyone in my vehicle, whether it’s myself or a potential passenger, there is no bodily injury coverage for anyone in the vehicle, like you said, would be covered by their health insurance or another product that they have that covers them for that type of loss.

Now, the ideal situation here is, let’s say it’s not a car on barrier collision. Let’s say it’s a car on car collision. Both cars are covered by track [00:20:00] insurance. At that point, let’s say. Open track would pay out to the other person to cover any injury, loss, whatever there. But the question I think that stems out of that is, let’s say that vehicle is a student and the instructor.

How does that work? Are they both covered in that instance? Uh, for bodily injury specifically? Yeah. Say the instructor and student were hit by someone with track insurance, open track specifically, they would be covered. Right? Yes, they would be yes, because they are external to the vehicle that we are ensuring, or our driver who we are ensuring when talking about liability that would be potentially covered for their bodily injuries.

Again, ideally, both vehicles would be covered by open track. Therefore, the person that got hit is covered and the person that did the hitting is also basically covered at that point, and both parties come out pretty much on top in the end, let’s just say. Yes, and let’s say both of those drivers are covered by open track and the liability or the the fault is difficult [00:21:00] to determine, then each of those persons would file a claim on their own policy for the damages.

Obviously, bodily injury might start playing into that because the policy for myself doesn’t include bodily injury for myself, so that could be sticky, but it is essentially a no fault policy for my damages. One of the mitigating factors, a lot of times, let’s say in regular insurance policies, has to do with the weather.

And many of us run rain or shine at the track. So that could be, to your point, one of those gray areas, like how did the accident actually occur, things like that. And luckily that’s pretty much null and void in this case. But is there an instance or scenario or use case. Where somebody would not be covered.

They did something, whether it’s negligence or something that would just null and void the policy. Yeah, unfortunately, Eric, I’m not able to speak to that. I don’t know if we’ve run into that in the past. All right, so let’s switch away from the inquisition here, away from our listener base questions, and now that we have a little bit more idea of how [00:22:00] this works, people are excited to sign up.

They’re hearing about open track for the first time. How do they go about getting their track insurance? What are the costs? Like? What are the plans? Are there different packages? Let’s dig a little deeper into declared value, and how do you step somebody through that process? Do they need to get an an appraisal?

You know, how does this whole thing work? Yeah, so I’ll start with how does someone sign up for our coverage? For open track, so our policies can be purchased on our website@opentrack.com. Our quoting is pretty simple. Quoting, underwriting, and issuance process is the quickest in the marketplace. With coverage issued in just a matter of minutes, the client will even have a policy document in their possession via email immediately after making payment for the coverage.

So there’s just a bit of information when they go out to the website to get through that quoting and underwriting process, the vehicle information, their name, their birthdate, any additional drivers they want to add to the policy, as well as whether they want both the [00:23:00] physical damage and the liability, or just the physical damage, or even just the liability coverage.

Once they’re enrolled, whether a daily policy purchase or an annual enrollment, the client will have access to their personalized online dashboard, and that’s where they’re really gonna access all of their information. They can make changes from that dashboard. They can inquire from that dashboard they can access.

A lot of what we’ll get to here in a moment, the drive Better program from that dashboard, the process itself is very simple from start to finish to get coverage put into place. Specifically when you’re talking about the valuation of the vehicle, the client will determine that value. We don’t have any tool available to them to use.

What I found is that a lot of these drivers do have a, a good idea of what their vehicle is worth. And so when they’re determining that vehicle value, they would want to include any upgrades in that valuation. They put in just the one limit when they’re going through the quoting process, and when I’m discussing this with clients, I tend to [00:24:00] rely upon multiple resources, at least as where I’m directing them, if they’re concerned with how to determine that value.

So I refer them back to vehicle valuation sites. For instance, Kelly Blue Book, auction sites purchase price. If they’ve just purchased the vehicle, that’s a pretty good place to start, right? That’s the current market value of that vehicle. They’ve just paid for it, or a professional appraisal. Some of these folks have a regular appraisal done on their vehicles, so they know exactly what that’s worth for insurance purposes or otherwise.

So say I sign up for an event, not that this has ever happened before. The day you’re supposed to go to the track, it snows and you need to reschedule because your event coordinator canceled the event on you. Or you know, maybe something else happens. Who knows. Right? Is it easy to move these policies around or are they locked into the dates?

You know, is there kind of a range check type of system? How does that work? That’s another great question. It’s one that comes up, you know, more than we’d like it. To this year, for instance, has been a pretty rough start to the season with weather related issues. [00:25:00] To answer your question, we have a couple different options.

The first option, and probably the easiest for that person is that from their personalized dashboard, they can actually go out and change the date if it’s the day before or earlier of the event. They can go into their dashboard and change the effective date to a future date. Now, that’s the only thing that they’d be able to change.

They wouldn’t be able to change the vehicle that’s being insured. They wouldn’t be able to change the track that they’re going to or the number of days that they’re going to that track. Oh, but interesting. So you can’t move from, let’s say, summit Point to Watkins Glen. You have to go to another Summit Point event.

Correct. With that process. Now, that’s not the only process we have available. We do also have, if that event has been truthfully canceled, which does happen, there is the option to cancel the policy altogether. That person, to your point, might not be going to Summit Point again in the next 30, 60, 90 days.

So we can cancel that policy [00:26:00] if it’s the day before or earlier, we would just take their word and they say, Hey, I’m not going to that event, and we’ll cancel the policy if it’s the day of or after. We would just ask for some sort of proof from the track day event coordinator or host of the event to indicate that that person did not participate.

Specifically, or the event was canceled. So what if that organizer doesn’t have another date at that track? Let’s say maybe they only go to that track once a year. Can you transfer it from one provider to another? Say maybe it’s h o d this weekend and then it’s Chin that’s gonna run there the next time and, and somebody else, but they don’t go to the same place twice.

Yeah, I know some of our competitors do, but our policies are not tied to a specific event coordinator or host. That’s not even a question that we ask in our process because that’s not a field or a bit of information taken into account for the purchase of that policy. It does not matter. So the only thing to change in a date down on a single event policy.[00:27:00]

Because we don’t ask for the event coordinator or the host, they’re just changing the event date. They just change the event date easy enough. So what if there’s a track you really want to go to? You’re a loyal open track customer and it’s not on the list. How do new tracks get added? Are they being added all the time, or do you just have to skip it?

Is there some sort of maybe blanket policy that can still be acquired if the track isn’t on the list of, let’s say approved venues? Yeah, so I would say we run into this on occasion. And it’s usually not a situation where it’s been an existing track and we just don’t have it on our list. We have every track that anyone could go to on our list.

For the most part, what usually happens is that it’s a new track that has just opened. And we didn’t know about it. Like Ozarks right, is brand new. So Ozarks is, uh, a great example. Ozarks is a track that someone reached out to us, let us know that it was not on our list, and we had it added to our covered track list within a matter of two [00:28:00] hours.

And essentially that’s what’s gonna happen is we’re gonna do a bit of research to understand why was it not on our list. Usually it’s going to be a situation where that is a new track. It’s a new track that’s just been created or built, and it’s just opening. We’ll do our due diligence to look at the track, look at their website, make sure it’s a road course that’s, you know, within our standards, and we’ll get it added to our system.

And that literally takes a matter of, uh, just a couple hours. So the big thing is always cost. And obviously with any of these, it’s on a sliding scale because like we said, the minimum’s 30 grand. Then you got the 150,000 and above cars. How does one determine or estimate what they’re gonna be paying when they buy, let’s say that single day policy, and is there a discount for buying the whole year?

So what are we looking at Costwise? Yeah, so cost wise, you know, it’s all very technical and so I won’t really be able to speak to cost per se. That can all be obtained when going through the quoting process on our website. A couple things I’ll say. One is, uh, [00:29:00] we offer on our daily policy, programer, our single event coverage we offer.

One to four consecutive days of coverage and where we might differ from our competitors is that our pricing is different for one day versus two days versus three versus four. Now it’s not quite double for the two day triple, for the three, quadruple for the four, it actually steps up less than that, so it actually becomes very competitive for the annual program.

It is a true annual program, 365 days a year. And that pricing is based upon really only a couple factors on both the daily and the annual. That pricing is based upon the vehicle value the vehicle make, and if on the daily product, the track that they’re going. That’s really the only three rating factors that we have.

When speaking about the annual unlimited program, we built that program for the more passionate drivers, right? Like I said earlier, that’s what we started out as. We started out as an annual only product. And it wasn’t until just a few years ago that we even added the [00:30:00] daily product, the annual program, uh, being for those most passionate drivers.

And those that are getting out to the track more frequently, it’s going to include the 365 days of continuous coverage. There’s no need for them to worry about purchasing except, but once per year, there’s unlimited track days with that product. There’s no requirement to notify us when or where they’re going as long as they are going to one of our covered tracks.

They have coverage, they don’t need to let us know. This provides them the freedom to enjoy that passion for tracking without the hassle of having to worry about their insurance every moment that they’re out there. Additionally, one of the benefits when I’m talking about the 120 plus tracks that they have access to, I mentioned it briefly, but it’s kind of a big one.

We do offer coverage for Canadian tracks that is only available in our annual program. We do not offer our daily policies for the Canadian tracks. There’s unlimited cars, and what I’ll say there is it’s not unlimited cars at no additional [00:31:00] cost. There is an additional cost, but it’s very competitive, so we will always rate for the highest valued vehicle that they own, that they want to put on that policy.

The highest value’s always gonna have. The primary rate, any second or subsequent vehicles that are of equal or lesser value would be just $150 each in premium for the year. Now additionally there I’ll say, is the vehicles all must have common ownership. It’s not like I can put my car on the policy and then my buddy or my brother can have his vehicle on the policy as well.

We’d have to have our own separate annual policies if we are intending on having coverage. We already went through earlier, the unlimited drivers. There’s no cap to the number of drivers. There’s no additional cost for adding drivers. Instructors are covered automatically while in the process of instruction.

And then we also went through the reduced deductible from the daily product down to the annual product from 10% down to 5% except for the McLarens and the greater than $300,000 value. So many of us are used [00:32:00] to our everyday driver policies, whether we have Geico or Liberty Mutual or Allstate, you know, all the commercials, these farmers DA and all that kind of thing.

But they all have these good driver incentive programs. Say you get through the entire season, especially with the unlimited plan that you’ve bought into, and you don’t have any claims, you don’t have any faults, you don’t have any actions. Is there any sort of kickback there or promotion or anything for being a good track driver in regard to good driver discounts?

We get that question. It does make sense on on your regular auto insurance. We price our products competitively for everyone. In current state, we do not offer any good driver credits. We offer our pricing as competitively as possible for everyone. Ultimately, if someone has a loss with us, we’re not going to penalize them either.

On that back end, what will happen is there is a lifetime, two losses. Before someone would become ineligible for our products. We kind of covered what the common types of incidents and claims might [00:33:00] be, and we never really wanna be in that situation. We always try to avoid that. That’s why we’re there to be at an H P D E is to get better as drivers, to be safer, to predict when things are gonna happen and potentially go wrong, but you know, things go wrong.

And if you’re going to submit a claim, that’s the part where we all kind of grown and go, oh man, what? Now? You know, how long am I gonna be on hold? Listen. Tomac, you know, that kind of thing. So let’s talk about how the claims process works at Open Track. So while I cannot disclose any specific claims data, what I can say is that claims certainly do happen, and with recent supply chain issues that we’re dealing with across the country, And across the world, understaffed shops and the overall price of repairs, increasing claims are only getting more expensive.

So the main driver of claims that we see is a driver’s simply making an error and their inability or failure to properly recover from that error regarding the claims process. Then once they’ve had a loss, once something [00:34:00] does occur, We have gotten great feedback from our clients who have gone through that, and while we do not enjoy our clients having to go through a claim situation, we do strive to provide a quick response and claim resolution so that they can get back to doing what they love, get back on track, enjoy their passion for driving as quickly as we possibly can get them there.

Different than your standard driving policy, you’re not really interfacing with the claims adjuster and things like that, or are you They would be, yeah. So our claims process is pretty simple. From their dashboard. Again, they can put in the claims information, submit a claim that then goes through our internal.

Review process and goes to a claims representative with the company, and that claims representative will then reach out to them within a 24 to 48 hour time period. While that’s happening, the vehicle owner can take their vehicle to any body shop that they would like. We don’t have recommended body shops.

We don’t tell them where they can and can’t go. They can take it anywhere they like. So that is their freedom [00:35:00] to use someone that they are familiar with, someone that might be familiar with their vehicle or that type of vehicle, and we get great feedback on that as well. And they’re also allowed to fix or repair it themselves.

Right? Yes. I know you said you couldn’t tell us about any specific claims data, but maybe you could talk about trends. Are there higher horsepower cars that are. Getting more claims than others. Any fun things that you’ve seen in the patterns over the last couple of years with respect to track insurance?

Unfortunately, I’m not able to comment on that. I think there’s some logical assumptions that could be made as to, you know, where those claims lie. Like I said earlier, Ferrari’s, we had to make a decision to adjust our product because of the loss experience that we were seeing. But I can’t get into it any further than that, unfortunately.

Understood. So let’s switch gears a little bit. There’s something very unique about Open Track in that you guys offer a program called Drive Better. So why don’t you tell us what that’s all about? Drive Better was launched in early 2021 and it’s really focused [00:36:00] on what resources can we offer to our membership.

That will help them become a better driver and that’ll be things such as free driver coaching from our on staff, professional driving coach. That is a once per year virtual coaching session with our on staff driving coach, and it would begin with that driver signing up for the session and then sending in if they have it, any driving data.

That they have from a data system in their vehicle that can be reviewed during that virtual session. They’ll go through that with the driving coach and get some feedback. Those sessions last about an hour to an hour and a half. Talking about their data is not the entire portion of that conversation.

There is a lot of time during that conversation for them to ask additional questions, get a bit more specific on some of the feedback that they’re being given a and other things. That’s probably the highlight of Drive better. But additionally, they would have access to webinars, try to at least do a monthly webinar, [00:37:00] and those range in topics from where should I be breaking in the corner?

Or we had one recently was, Hey, I’m interested in racing. What do I need to know before jumping into that space? Even though we don’t ensure racing, we don’t ensure any kind of competitive event, our drivers may be pursuing that as the next step in their evolution of driving their vehicle. So there’s access to those webinars.

There’s also access to track guides and protips. We’ve created those types of materials for about 20 to 30. Of the primary tracks across the country, and so they would have access to that. It gets very specific in, you know, the corners on each track and some of the other things that you’d want to know when you get there.

And then we have, all of those webinars that we’ve created are also on demand, so they don’t even have to. Attend the live webinar if they don’t want to. Of course we want them to. We want them to be able to enjoy that because it’s a different feeling when you’re there in person, but those are also available on demand from their [00:38:00] dashboard.

All of the benefits we offer with the annual unlimited program support our motto of helping people to drive more. Through unlimited insurance and drive better with awesome coaching content. Yeah. And if it helps sweeten the pot for our listeners, I mean the pro coach that you have on staff right now, some people may recognize from Trans Am IMSA and S R O World Challenge, we’re talking about Andy Lee.

I mean, he’s got over a hundred professional race starts, 24 podium finishes. I mean, he’s been doing this for forever and he is a great guy. And why not take the opportunity to expand your open track experience and get to work with Andy Lee one-on-one? I mean, what an amazing experience. Talk about a key differentiator between you and the competitors, and actually that’s kind of a great segue.

As petrol heads, we’re all very mechanical in some form or another, maybe more so than others, but that’s okay. But a lot of us come to the table and we like our popular mechanics charts, right? So if we’re gonna stack rank all the competitors out there, you know, there’s open track and there’s Haggerty, [00:39:00] and there’s Lockton, and there’s Goal Wing and there’s rli.

But without getting into all the specifics of who’s who in the zoo, let’s talk about just those key differentiators that makes Open Track stand out from all these other names. Like you said, while there are other track day insurance products in the marketplace, we at Open Track, we believe our products provide the best value, specifically our annual unlimited membership, where we’ve included many of the benefits that I’ve gone through today and access to those resources at no additional charge.

We want to empower our members to accelerate their skills, to be more safe and to get faster at the track. You know, when I’m talking about the daily product, Not much differentiation can take place in the marketplace Where we differentiate ourself in that product. One place specifically is that our product is not requiring that the event be sanctioned.

So it can be used for that general track time where you’re going out and it’s probably gonna be tied to a private track club or something like that, where they’re just going [00:40:00] out and they need coverage and they don’t have a sanctioned event. Makes sense. But ultimately, with any of our products, We are always focused on the driver.

We want to provide a product that they want and that they can use to improve their skills. So, Brett, as we wrap things up here, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover on this episode? One thing I would say is this. So we are always looking for feedback. We thrive on feedback.

The company was built. On feedback. It was built on talking to clients, talking to people out at tracks, and so if anyone has any information, anything they want to talk through, reach out. I would love to have a conversation. I’ll give you my number here in a minute, but I am always available to have a conversation with someone because I love talking about our products.

I really do because I believe that we have something to offer that no one else does. I think our products are immeasurable in how they compete and what they can provide [00:41:00] to our client base. As far as promotions, I’ll hit it really high level. We rolled out in December of 2021, a referral bonus program. So without getting into specifics on dollar amounts and things like that, anyone who is a member and I, I’m including daily policy purchasers and annual policy purchasers.

Any one of those members is eligible to participate in that program. And so once they’ve enrolled into or purchased one of our products, they can go to their dashboard and they can find more information about that program. So Brett, if people want to continue this conversation with you one-on-one, what’s the best way to get ahold of you?

I would say two ways. One, I’m happy to take an email. My email address is Brett, b r e t t dot Larson, l a r s o n, at open track.com. Would love an email, but emails aren’t always the greatest for having these types of conversations, so would love a phone call. Would love someone to reach out to me to talk through why they’re excited about tracking.

What type of vehicle they’re driving, what have they [00:42:00] put into their vehicle? What has their experience been and any feedback they wanna offer on, Hey, here’s something where I see you guys could really improve. We’d love that as well. So my phone number, if anyone wants to reach out, is 6 1 2 6 0 1. One zero three four, and either email or phone.

Happy to have a conversation. Track day insurance coverage for both your car and your actions. That’s what Open Track is all about and what Brett has been talking about here throughout this episode. Because your track day rush should come from your speed and not from your financial risk. So if you’ve been apprehensive about getting on track with your beloved vehicle, hop over to www.open track.com and like Brett, Said, get a free quote in minutes and make sure you’re covered before ever turning your first lap.

And if that’s not enough, you can also check out open track on social media at Open Track Drive on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And by the way, they’ve also [00:43:00] got a YouTube channel at Open Track. And you can also find open track on LinkedIn. So they’re just about everywhere, everywhere you need to be as well.

So Brett, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and telling us all about Open Track, its offerings, and hopefully getting some people up off their couch and onto the track where they want to be. I appreciate the invite. Eric was happy to be here and I heard a statistic the other day that said that the track day market, the track day enthusiast, is gonna grow exponentially for the next five years.

People are going to find out about this. When they’re finding out about it. We want them to be aware. There are products available out there, there’s people they can talk to. We want to make sure that they’re protected as adequately as possible so they can enjoy their time and keep that hobby growing.

Absolutely. Thanks Brett. We’ll talk soon. Take it easy. Bye now.

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