car insurance excess

Legacy_user

my current policy has an excess of £100 ,im looking to reduce the price when i renew and possibly increase the excess , what amount do you have ? has it made a difference to the policy price?

dacouch

a) You have to remember that whatever excess you have you may have to find at a very inconvenient time if you have a claim so keep the excess at a managable amount.

b) If you have protected no claims bonus it is normally adviseable to keep you excess at a low amount eg £100 then say if someone scraps your car in a car park and drives off it is economical to claim. If you go for an excess of £300 and the damage is £350 the it is not going to be economial to make the claim.

c) Take into account the discount you receive for the excess, it is likely to save you around 5% off your premium by agreeing to increase your excess from £100 to £250 so if you are paying £250 a year in premium you will probably save around £12.50 a year. However you have agreed to pay a further £150 in a claim so £150 divided by the £12.50 saving means you have go for 12 years without making a claim to save you money. So often on a smaller premium it is not advisable to take a bigger excess. However if your premium way say £600 and you received a 5% discount eg £30 the figures work out better. On this basis the extra excess is £150 divided by your £30 saving means you only have to go five years without making a claim so it could be worth taking the bigger excess.

If the claim is not your fault and their is someone to recover the excess from eg someone hits you in the rear then you can normally recover your excess from the other Insurer. Bear in mind this can often take months.

Becareful as a lot of Insurers or Comparison sites are set up to quote you with big excesses to make their premium look low. So when you get the quotes look at the total excess which is the Insurers Compulsory Excess plus any Voluntary Excess.

So take into account the above and ask for quotes on different excesses and then work out what gives you the best overall value.

I hope this helps

Oscar_The_Grouch

The other thing to bear in mind is the value of your car. You don't want the excess to be a large proportion of the value of your car, or you may as well insure third party fire & theft.

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Oscar_The_Grouch wrote: »

The other thing to bear in mind is the value of your car. You don't want the excess to be a large proportion of the value of your car, or you may as well insure third party fire & theft.

That's not strictly true. A comprehensive policy might include plenty of benefits in addition to fire and theft cover.