Excess Protection Insurance

dacouch

Sledgehead wrote: »

... BUT correct me if I'm wrong, I am right in saying that should a third party be involved and I am deemed to be at fault, there is a good chance I will end up paying out my excess for work done on their vehicle, right?

In that case excess protection will have a value and is therefore not pointless, yes?

If you're not claiming for your own damage you would not normally have an excess to pay

shelly

Sledgehead wrote: »

... BUT correct me if I'm wrong, I am right in saying that should a third party be involved and I am deemed to be at fault, there is a good chance I will end up paying out my excess for work done on their vehicle, right?

In that case excess protection will have a value and is therefore not pointless, yes?

No. You only pay your excess when claiming for damage to your vehicle.

Sledgehead

Big thanks to shelly and dacouch for clearing up the true meaning of 'excess'. I have to say I've read more than a couple of definitions and it really has never been that clear as to whether third party claims cause a charge on ones own excess or not.

Logically, I can see why they would not because, as I understand it, excess is a tool used to reduce petty fraud (dent OWN wing with a hammer, claim on own insurance, trouser the claimed £ - clearly somethiing you could not do w/o conspiracy to a 3rd party). I also understand that excess is not a tool applied to Third Party Fire & theft policies, so that would also point to 'excess' being applicable only to claims made for costs incurred to your own car.

Nevertheless, unless you have had actual experience of such claims it's difficult to know for sure, especially when call centre staff lie/don't understand the products themselves.

One more question, if I could impose upon kind folks knowledge: Inside Insurance refered to Glass Guide valuations (or the like) when determinining what an insurer might pay out in the event of write-off. Should one be looking at the trade in price (what I'd sell an equivalent model for) or dealer prices (what I'd buy an equivalent model for). Cheers.

InsideInsurance

Excess is not really to prevent fraud, in your example the bigger the excess the more times you'd hit it with a hammer and to be honest these days its hard to get a garage to look at your car for under £1,000 let alone repair it!

It is intended to discourage spurious small claims. Claims operations is a massive overhead for insurers and if people claimed for every minor scratch or door opening dent etc they'd have to increase those costs greatly to be able to cope with the volume of claims.

Sledgehead

Point taken.

And returning to the write-off valuations : would these be 'buy' (dealer selling pices) or 'sell' (dealer trade-in) valuations?

InsideInsurance

See http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

Gives what the FOS considers for most the guides

Sledgehead

Thanks so much for that link I.I.

I do believe I'm actually starting to understand what I've been paying for all these years. Better late than never eh?