Lifestyle Excess Insurance

angloshot

A few years ago I was buying insurance of some sort, House I think, when the phone operator/salesman said "I might be able to bring that down further for you, have you heard of Lifestyle Excess Insurance?"

Now, I'd normally be very wary of insurance add-ons, but this has genuinely changed my life (in a small but satisfying money-saving way).

Essentially you pay £20-£30 for an annual policy which covers the excess, up to an agreed amount and up to 100% of the excess, for all of your insurance policies. It's also variously referred to as Excess Waiver Insurance and Policy Excess Insurance.

So I took out an Excess Insurance policy to cover a £500 excess, paying £30. I then upped the excess on my house insurance to £500, saving £20 on that policy. At car insurance renewal time I bumped up the excess to £500 and saved another £25. And then another £1/month on pet insurance. £27/annum up at this point, but potentially a lot more if I weren't already fairly cheap to insure. I've now done this 3 years in a row, so saved a few quid.

So, what's the catch? A couple that I have recognised so far:
- If your excess is £500, you won't be covered for anything up to this value. i.e. a claim for £499 won't be covered by either policy. Unlikely to affect car insurance as claims are never that low these days, but worth considering for house insurance.
- You will have to pay the full excess and reclaim it later.
- I've never heard of any of the companies that offer this, and I've not yet claimed, so it may end up not being worth the hassle if you do need to claim.

Where to buy? It's quite hard to find, mainly because searching online usually leads to lots of Car Hire Excess Insurers. It's good but it's not the one. I've only found a couple so far (new forumite so no links allowed):
Pexinsure (whose dot is subsequently commed)
Computerquoteinsurance (whose dot is also subsequently commed, but whose own search function may prove useful with the phrase "excess waiver insurance")

So, what are the catches that I'm missing?
Why isn't this all over MSE?
Any other companies that do this?
Any claims/customer service experience with these companies, or others?

Thanks,

Matt

ThePants999

Bump - I'd be very interested if anyone can spot a catch here, as this sounds like genius to me!

Blibble

How many policies do you have this covering, and how often do you claim?

E.g., £25 p/a x 10 years is £250 in premiums, or potentially the excess on either a motor or home policy. Would you claim every 10 years on either policy? Up to you to decide.

rs65

angloshot wrote: »

- If your excess is £500, you won't be covered for anything up to this value. i.e. a claim for £499 won't be covered by either policy.

That's the catch in my view.

angloshot

I pay £30 a year, covering my house, car and cat insurance with £500 of cover. The excess on the cat insurance isn't that high because claims are often less than £500, but they are £500 each on the car and house.