Car Insurance- Change of car change of excess?

chris081271

Hi.

I'm just after getting something cleared up re my car insurance contract.

I changed cars half way through my insurance year. Phoned them got the car changed over the phone, they told me theres a premium increase of £xx and I agreed to this.

Got the new docs through the post checked the car was correct and filled the paperwork looking no thurther into it.

Anyway I had a bit of a ding the other day came home and grabbed my insurance paperwork to make a claim, its at this point I noticed that when I changed my car over they also increased my excess by £100 :huh:.

Is this usual? I thought the agreed excess at the begining of the year would stay the same for the whole 12 months.

Any info either way would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

dogbot

I think that two things could have taken place to cause the excess to increase:

1) to get the adjustment quote as low as possible the handler increased the excess so that you would stay with that insurer

2) The new car is more "risky" and so the rating requires a higher compulsory excess.


It is a great shame that whoever you spoke to didn't highlight the increase in excess and I believe they should have done. The problem is that you have reviewed the paperwork and agreed to the changes made so have agreed to the higher excess.

Are you sure that you didn't miss the full excess amount at inception? Sometimes it has been known for people to confuse compulsory and/or voluntary excess for the total excess.

At the end of the day, if the schedule you were sent and reviewed at the time of adjustment showed the higher total excess then you are stuck with it, since you read and revewed it.

If there is no mention of the change there then you can submit a formal complaint (in writing is best) with copies of the papers from inception and adjustment to prove the point.

chris081271

Thanks Dogbot. No my before car swap compolsory excess was £0 and Voluntary £150.

After I changed car it changed to Comp £100, Voluntary £150

Thanks for the help anyway, looks like i'll just have to lump up the £250 for now then and next time read the whole document.

Batchy

normally compulsory will always be 100... voluntary will be flexible... 0-1000... sup to you but will always effect premium.

the 100 compulsory stops u claiming for supermarket trolley dings... or door banging on doors etc.

dogbot

Well, if the comp excess has gone from £0 to £100 i would say they might just be correcting an error in the initial quote since, as suggested by the above posters comments, having £0 excess on a motor policy is almost unheard of. I would say £250 isn't too bad!