Car insurance a scam!

Keep_pedalling

If you can get a replacement of same age and similar mileage for the amount offered you will be in the exact position as you were before the accident. You will owe the same amount of money on the loan and have a car with considerable depreciation on the price you paid 16 months ago.

Aretnap

If you'd bought the car with a credit card, would you expect the insurance company to pay out a different amount depending on whether you'd been paying off the debt quickly or only making the minimum payments each month?

A finance agreement is no different. The insurance company's responsibility is to give you a fair value for your car at the time that it was written off. How much it was with at some point in the past, how you paid for it and how much of the original debt is left are not their business.

This does of course sometimes cause practical problems if you are in negative equity on a finance agreement. That's precisely the problem Gap insurance is intended to cover. It's offered as a separate policy because not all people want our need to pay the  extra premiums that would be never to cover the the extra costs of covering finance agreements rather than just the cars themselves.

As someone said above most insurers will offer a form of new for old cover and offer a new replacement on cars up to a year old - however Admiral are one of the companies that do NOT offer this feature. Which is part of the reason why they are so cheap - they are very much a budget insurer, not a premium one