I 'almost' learnt the hardway in my younger days. I had an older shape civic, air filter, exhaust, wheels, lowered, big stereo system, tints...nothing declared. I was three days from trading it in against another car so taking it easy etc. Then one day coming home from Uni I had a blow out on the M6 which shoved into the crash barrier on both side of the motorway. I was totally fine but the car was a write off (only a year old as well).
Anyhow, I had to go to the scrap yard that the car was recovered to, change over the airfilter and back box (we smashed these up to make it look like authentic) and coated the blue lowering springs in black grease. I then had the longest wait ever for the assessor to call...i flinched everytime the phone went expecting them to say ' sorry, but nothing declared, nothing to pay out'
When the call came from the assessor, his first words were;
"I'll give you £8k for it"
I swear, after all the sleepless nights, and tummy churning phone calls, i would have had his babies there and then
I didn't argue about the price and took the £8k, i wasn't about to take the piss and ask for more.
So, the moral of the story is don't ever take the chance...the hair loss isn't even worth it...i have never been so stressed in my life...(well i have, but this came as a close second)
