More excess better?

nrishiraj

Hi

How does the whole car insurance excess system work? When it comes for renewal, can I for example choose the highest excess (£1000) fee for my car? I noticed the more excess the cheaper the insurance quote.

What would happen if I had an accident and it wans't my fault, would I need to pay £1000?

What does voluntary excess exactly mean?

Any advice is much appreciated.

bigjl

Erm, well it should be self explanatory, but yes the Insurance company would not pay for any claim less than £1000, maybe worth it to get a cheaper premium if you own a new Ferrari, as any claim no matter how minor would be far in excess of £1000.

However if you drive a normal car with a value of £1500 then it would be daft to have an excess, you could have the car totalled and come away with £500.

You wouldn't have to pay the excess if you were not at fault, though if the 3rd party was uninsured you would.

Voluntary excess is just what it says, an excess that you chose to have to reduce your premium.

Compulsary excess is one the Insurance company makes part of your policy from the word go, and can increase if you are young or have a performance car.

Ebe_Scrooge

If you opt for a higher excess then your premiums will be reduced, simple as that.

The majority of insurance companies will give you a compulsory excess, which tends to be dependant upon your age / experience / risk factor / their own policies. You would probably find that a 17 year old would be given a higher compulsory excess than a 40 year old with years of experience and a clean record.

Anyhow, whatever, there will probably be a compulsory excess of some sort, and you can normally add a voluntary excess to reduce your premiums.

So if, for example, you had a compulsory excess of £100 and a voluntary excess of £300, then you would be liable for the first £400 of any claim. E.G. if you needed repairs that cost £1000, the insurance would pay you £600.

The higher the excess the lower your premiums ( I'm sure there will be an upper limit of some sort ), but you need to balance it out - you mentioned a £1000 excess, could you really afford to shell out £1000 if you damage your car ?

Non-fault claims - you need to check your policy carefully, but what *usually* happens is, you wait until the insurance company has got confirmation from the other party that they admit liability, then you get the repairs done. Since you're claiming off the other party, your own excess doesn't come into it. A lot of companies will let you pay your excess, get the repairs done straight away, then once all the legal arguing has finished they'll refund your excess if the other party is found to be liable. The annoying thing is that many times blame cannot be established so you will end up having to foot your excess ( this is one time when legal cover can be worth it ).

Hope this helps.

LandyAndy

bigjl wrote: »

Erm, well it should be self explanatory, but yes the Insurance company would not pay for any claim less than £1000, maybe worth it to get a cheaper premium if you own a new Ferrari, as any claim no matter how minor would be far in excess of £1000.

.

I always thought it meant that the insurers wouldn't pay the first £1000 of any claim regardless of the size of the claim. Not quite what you wrote.

rev_henry

Also worth noting is that there are usually different, lower excesses for fire and theft claims, and if the accident IS your fault you will NOT have to pay an excess towards the 3rd party's claim.

Mark_Hewitt

LandyAndy wrote: »

I always thought it meant that the insurers wouldn't pay the first £1000 of any claim regardless of the size of the claim. Not quite what you wrote.

Yes! They won't pay the first £1,000. By definition they won't pay a claim less than £1,000 either.

But remember this only applies to the policyholder, a third party making a claim against the policy will be subject to different rules, and quite often not subject to any excess. The policyholder may or may not have to pay the excess in that instance.

bigjl

LandyAndy wrote: »

I always thought it meant that the insurers wouldn't pay the first £1000 of any claim regardless of the size of the claim. Not quite what you wrote.

Is this MSE or semantics.com, if you have an excess of £1000 then they won't pay any claim less than a thousand pounds, how does this differ from saying they won't pay the first thousand, as by not paying the first thousand they will no pay any claim less than one thousand pounds.

Sometimes this forum gets boring with all the keyboard warriers, now read the OP's question and compare the relevance of your post with the relevance of mine.



If somebody thinks there is an innacuracy or a post seems unclear why not just say so, instead of all this sniping.

Gene_Hunt_2

bigjl wrote: »

Is this MSE or semantics.com, if you have an excess of £1000 then they won't pay any claim less than a thousand pounds, how does this differ from saying they won't pay the first thousand, as by not paying the first thousand they will no pay any claim less than one thousand pounds.

Sometimes this forum gets boring with all the keyboard warriers, now read the OP's question and compare the relevance of my post with the relevance of mine.

Didn't Mark just say that?

Inactive

bigjl wrote: »

Sometimes this forum gets boring with all the keyboard warriers, now read the OP's question and compare the relevance of my post with the relevance of mine.

I would never describe Landy Andy as a " keyboard warrior ", he is always most helpful.

Would you like the forum to yourself?

If I find something " boring " I just move on.

Mark_Hewitt

bigjl wrote: »

Is this MSE or semantics.com, if you have an excess of £1000 then they won't pay any claim less than a thousand pounds, how does this differ from saying they won't pay the first thousand, as by not paying the first thousand they will no pay any claim less than one thousand pounds.

Sometimes this forum gets boring with all the keyboard warriers, now read the OP's question and compare the relevance of my post with the relevance of mine.

By saying "They won't pay any claim less than £1,000" suggests that if a claim of £1,100 were submitted, then they would pay out £1,100. Of course the reality is that they will pay £100.

Of course you wouldn't claim for £100 either, as you have loss of no-claims etc to consider. I'd wager that with an excess of £1,000 it'd had to be touching £2,000 before you'd consider claiming.

Gene_Hunt_2

bigjl wrote: »

However if you drive a normal car with a value of £1500 then it would be daft to have an excess, you could have the car totalled and come away with £500.

It's not a Rover then.