gap insurance for motor vehicles

posty_3

my brother-in-law got free gap insurance for his brand new jag from the dealer , when it was wrote off he got a full payout for a new model the only problem he had was the gap insurer telling him not to accept the ammount his car insurer was offering he gave them each others details and left them to sort it out between themselves.

illmonkey

i had gap cover on my 1st car, paid £200 for it, and it promised to cover the cost from the insurance payout to the finance total. It was a renault clio, bought from perrys.

I crashed the car, was a write off. Car was valued at 6450 and finance was 6650 (only had it 2 months!) anyway, they only paid £200 as the first £450 was my excess. So it paid for its self.

Personnally i would like that reassurance being there, for only £200, spread it over the time you have the car, will be like £10 a month! well worth it in my eyes.

edit: 1 down side. My insurance company paid out within a month with no questions or anything. They even just wrote a cheque for the fence i damaged without proof of the cost (£350)!. The GAP company took 6 months!! to shell out the £200 and required so much paper work to be filled out. At one point i almost just paid the £200 to be done with the whole process. (i think this was proberly the company i used as apposed to the law or anything)

sw_mina

Just bought a new Skoda Fabia, and the salesman tried to sell me what he called 'Gap Return to Invoice' insurance. Basically, if I write-off the car, then I get the difference between what my insurance company thinks it was worth and what I just paid for it. For 3 years, this costs £300. Does anyone have enough experience to advise me whether this is a good idea or not? My gut instinct says no - I plan on selling the car in 18 months, and since I've just got a £1,500 discount on it, I don't suppose the differential between what the insurance company say it's worth and what it actually would be worth can be that huge, can it?

Opinions?

impy78

If you are on finance take the gap insurance.

Insurance companies estimate that a new car loses 10% of its market value imediately after it is driven off the forecourt - certain companies will just replace a new car within 12 months of purchase..however over that, you will end up losing out, as you will be paying interest on your car finance plan, which the insurance will not cover.

vansboy

This is one of the few insurance products that does SOMETIMES make sense!!

It's not a huge amount, considering the potential 'shortfall' if you did loads of miles in the car & were unlucky enough, for a mishap to write it off, a coupe of years down the line - while you stiil owed £$£$£

& these days, it' doesn't take much to create a not to easy repair - the crumple zones are designed to take the impact & destroy your car!!

VB

Savvy_Sue

But you don't have to get it from the place you bought the car from, nor do you have to take it out the same day - do a google for GAP insurance and see what comes up. We did take it out and had a choice of 3 levels - get original purchase price back, get finance settled, or something else can't remember what. We went for the middle level.

I think some insurance companies will refund total cost of new car if written off during first year. If you're only keeping it for 18 months that's worth looking into.

We wouldn't have done it if we hadn't had a finance deal (good one!) on it.

tanith

I wish I had even known about 'Gap' insurance when a drug addict wrote of my not so new car............ It was only second hand but it took all my savings to purchase it and although I argued with them for 3 days in the end I had to accept the offer which was £2,300 less than the price I paid just 8mths earlier............ you never know when its going to happen to you..

mpet

http://www.car-finance.net/insurance/

Try this site - a lot cheaper than the insurance the car showrooms try an push on you

mpet

Helen_from_yorkshire

tanith wrote:

I wish I had even known about 'Gap' insurance when a drug addict wrote of my not so new car............ It was only second hand but it took all my savings to purchase it and although I argued with them for 3 days in the end I had to accept the offer which was £2,300 less than the price I paid just 8mths earlier............ you never know when its going to happen to you..

I'm unsure whether GAP insurance would have covered you ... is this type of insurance available on both new and secondhand cars?

fruitpie

Hi guys

We have just returned from living in Australia, and their insurance policies/companies give you the option of, Market Value and Agreed Value. The latter being paid out should your car be written off in an accident, or by a kangaroo !

We thought it was good, you can loose a lot of money on a new car should you be involved in an accident. Look for a policy that covers for writes off's during the first year as Savvy_sue suggests..