alloy and body insurance

stranger12

Hi guys,

I did buy a fairly pricey car and was offered an option to take alloy and body insurance for around £500 for 3 years.

Policy allows maximum of 3 claims per year for alloy and not sure re body .
each claim is limited at £100 so essentially for £250 for alloys I am getting around £900 worth of repair if needed.

it is with ALA, https://www.ala.co.uk/alloy-wheel-insurance

would you take out a policy or bite the bullet and fix any issues as they arise?

stranger12

it is meant to be separate insurance so not impacting my policy

what is meant by smart repair? is it generally repair done on road side?

if you have scrubbed the edges of the alloys to kerb, what is a typical cost of fixing it ?

AdrianC

Have you tried not driving into things?

I've never once needed to have a wheel tidied up by a smart repairer. It doesn't seem to cover you for wheel replacement or more substantial repair, and doesn't cover your tyres.

A smart repair is a localised repair - just a little touch-up of the paint and scuff removal.

Car_54

As above, drive carefully!

If you really feel you need it, shop around. My Merc dealer wanted £299 for a policy I could buy elsewhere for £110.

JP08

Ask them how much more they will take off the purchase price if you take the insurance (after all the salesman is almost certainly on commission / the dealership has targets for insurance sales) ...

Mobeer

Key question - have you shopped around for comparison quotes?

neilmcl

stranger12 wrote: »

Hi guys,

I did buy a fairly pricey car and was offered an option to take alloy and body insurance for around £500 for 3 years.

Policy allows maximum of 3 claims per year for alloy and not sure re body .
each claim is limited at £100 so essentially for £250 for alloys I am getting around £900 worth of repair if needed.

it is with ALA, https://www.ala.co.uk/alloy-wheel-insurance

would you take out a policy or bite the bullet and fix any issues as they arise?

Have you tried doing a quote from ALA yourself? I guarantee if your dealer is offering it then there'll be something in it for them.

Personally I wouldn't bother, I don't think it's particularly good value for money especially as one thing they don't always tell you is that one chip or scratch counts as a single repair so you could get through your allowance very easily.

macman

The dealer will be routinely doubling the real cost. Just the same tactic that DSG use to try and sell you an extended warranty, be it on a washing machine or a toaster.
Last time I ordered a car I was subjected to the usual extended sales spiel for GAP insurance, scratch insurance and of course our old favourite, paint protection. The dealer will probably make more from selling you those than their margin on the car.

facade

Golden rule- it isn't worth insuring what you can afford to replace.

Looks to me like in the absolute best case scenario you could get £900 back for a £500 investment, and you've got to try really hard to scuff exactly 3 wheels every year.

Unless you can guarantee that you will make at least 5 £100+ claims you are onto a loser.

Save the £500 and avoid the kerbs, then if do you need to cover one incident, £500 should be more than enough to buy a new wheel, never mind have one refurbed or touched up.