The only way is Excess!

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We regularly use Facebook to promote our excess insurance and its always surprising to hear how many people think its too good to be true. You don’t need to take our word for it, trusted sources like confused.com and MoneySupermarket.com have written articles explaining the benefits.

Excess insurance is provided by a number of companies, including the main fully comp insurers. However, they don’t appear to like discussing or promoting it. Most likely because it only serves to highlight the unfair excess’s applied. A driver under 21 years old will probably be paying at least A?1,000 for their fully comp cover but if they ever needed to claim they will also have to stump up A?100’s in excess. Is that really comprehensive cover?

Auto insurance is big business and very competitive, over 70% of policies in the UK are purchased through comparison sites so they are always looking at ways to draw people to their site. The majority of people just want the cheapest premium possible and very rarely look into what they are getting for their money. One way to reduce premiums is to increase excess and our research showed that this tactic might be being applied by big insurers to make sure they are top of the comparison site lists. Again don’t take our word for it, a review by the Financial Conduct Authority highlighted concerns.

Comparison sites will argue that they just find the cheapest quote for you, they don’t write the policy terms & conditions or decide the prices. However, comparison sites have worked hard to establish themselves as trusted brands and should do more to point out the negatives and positives of the various quotes.

A major flaw in comprehensive insurance quoting appears to be that there is no limit placed on how much your excess can be compared to the value of the vehicle. We obtained quotes from four comparison sites for a 22 year old male with a 2007 1.4 Vauxhall Corsa worth A?2,000. All of them allowed quotes to be obtained from insurers with an excess amount of half of the vehicles value. One quote was A?1,034 with A?1,200 excess, meaning that the cost to repair or replace to vehicle would have to be at least A?1,200.01 for a claim to be paid out! Insurers will be quick to point out that the cost of the premium doesn’t just reflect how much it will cost them to repair your car or how much it costs to repair any third party damage you cause. The issue is that younger drivers are more likely to need to claim and insurance, like gambling is risk based.

When starting to learn how to drive, you should plan ahead and make you sure can afford to run a vehicle, comparethemarket.com conducted a survey which revealed that nearly 1 million motorists never drive after passing their test, with the cost of of driving a major reason.

Is your insurance really comprehensive?

Everyone knows vehicle insurance is expensive, especially for young drivers. There are many good articles out there advising on how to cut your Comprehensive Insurance Premium such as:

http://http://www.driving.co.uk/car-clinic/advice-insurance-for-beginners
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/car-insurance/
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/jun/16/carinsurance
http://www.confused.com/on-the-road/cost-of-motoring/driving-down-the-cost-of-car-insurance

They all have one thing in common; increase your excess = lower premium.Ai??You feel great having discovered this helpful advice and got a cheaper quote on your renewal but think about it for a minute. You are paying hundreds of pounds to insure the vehicle yet now you have to pay even more to make a claim is this really comprehensive cover?

What the articles don’t tell you is that you can protect this excess meaning when you do need to claim it wont cost you!

Cartoon picture of a crash in a car park

 

What is excess insurance?

Excess Insurance means that even if you have a high excess you wonai??i??t suddenly have to find a suitcase full of money to pay for repairs. Instead of paying the excess yourself the excess insurance policy pays it for you so you wonai??i??t be out of pocket, face a huge credit card bill or borrow from the bank of mum and dad.

How much does it cost?

The price of cover varies depending on the size of the excess covered and the length of the policy, premiums start from as little as A?20 for a years cover. However you can purchase up to 4 years cover which is even cheaper.

Do I really need more insurance?

You may never have needed to make a insurance claim but even careful claim-free drivers can run afoul of an uninsured driver, theft or something else. In 2006 I lent my car to a friend who had a brain aneurysm just a couple of hundred yards down the road from picking it up! Ai??IAi??would have saved A?2,000 if we had excess insurance then.

Even if you dont claim protecting your excess could still save you money because if you know your excess will be covered, you can afford to opt for a higher excess, reducing your motor insurance premium. The cost of the excess insurance will often be less than the amount saved by having a higher excess on your car insurance.

Is it Comprehensive?

When looking for motor insurance its easy to think that when it says comprehensive it covers everything. That’s just not true.Ai??All insurance has terms & conditions and one type of policy may be exactly what you need but wouldn’t always be the right one for somebody else, it all comes down to personal circumstances. For example one insurer may offer a courtesy car as standard for 14Ai??days but only a small (Class A) car like a Fiat 500 or Ford Ka but another may offer a replacement vehicle comparable in size to your own for 4 days.

One thing we think everyone will agree on is that given the choice you would choose not to have to pay towards a claim (excess).

WPAE Facebook Profile

Be prepared

With one in five new drivers havingAi??an accident in the first 12 months, we really should do more to prepareAi??them. Here are our tips to make dealing with an accident stress free.

  • Keeping important information in your car could be dangerous as if its broken into at best itsAi??lost butAi??it can potentially be usedAi??as identify theft and cloning. That’s where your phone comes in, use the notes app or even create a new contact for your insurer, include the claim department telephone number and your policy number.
  • If you have a crash with another car, use your phone to take down the other persons insurance details and take a pictures of the damage to yours and the other vehicle.Ai??Also take a picture of the view of the road from where you had the accident.
  • If there is anybody else around who saw the accident but was not a passenger or a friend relative of anyone involved as for their details too as they can be used as witness.
  • Dont worry about whose fault it was in reality its not your decision, your insurer will take care of that.