You can also buy GAP insurance, Alloy Wheel Insurance, Tyre Insurance, Cosmetic Insurance and Key Insurance from our other site tidyalloys.com
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Author: Chris Sharpe
The only way is Excess!
We regularly use Facebook to promote our excess insurance and its always surprising to hear how many people think its too good to be true. You don’t need to take our word for it, trusted sources like confused.com and MoneySupermarket.com have written articles explaining the benefits.
Excess insurance is provided by a number of companies, including the main fully comp insurers. However, they don’t appear to like discussing or promoting it. Most likely because it only serves to highlight the unfair excess’s applied. A driver under 21 years old will probably be paying at least A?1,000 for their fully comp cover but if they ever needed to claim they will also have to stump up A?100’s in excess. Is that really comprehensive cover?
Auto insurance is big business and very competitive, over 70% of policies in the UK are purchased through comparison sites so they are always looking at ways to draw people to their site. The majority of people just want the cheapest premium possible and very rarely look into what they are getting for their money. One way to reduce premiums is to increase excess and our research showed that this tactic might be being applied by big insurers to make sure they are top of the comparison site lists. Again don’t take our word for it, a review by the Financial Conduct Authority highlighted concerns.
Comparison sites will argue that they just find the cheapest quote for you, they don’t write the policy terms & conditions or decide the prices. However, comparison sites have worked hard to establish themselves as trusted brands and should do more to point out the negatives and positives of the various quotes.
A major flaw in comprehensive insurance quoting appears to be that there is no limit placed on how much your excess can be compared to the value of the vehicle. We obtained quotes from four comparison sites for a 22 year old male with a 2007 1.4 Vauxhall Corsa worth A?2,000. All of them allowed quotes to be obtained from insurers with an excess amount of half of the vehicles value. One quote was A?1,034 with A?1,200 excess, meaning that the cost to repair or replace to vehicle would have to be at least A?1,200.01 for a claim to be paid out! Insurers will be quick to point out that the cost of the premium doesn’t just reflect how much it will cost them to repair your car or how much it costs to repair any third party damage you cause. The issue is that younger drivers are more likely to need to claim and insurance, like gambling is risk based.
When starting to learn how to drive, you should plan ahead and make you sure can afford to run a vehicle, comparethemarket.com conducted a survey which revealed that nearly 1 million motorists never drive after passing their test, with the cost of of driving a major reason.
Hit and run incidents on the rise
The research was commissioned by the Motor Insurer’s Bureau and they go on to state that many drivers really weren’t aware of what to do after they’d had an accident. The research included data on 695 people who were convicted of committing a hit and run office and helped identify a number of common reasons why people flee the scene of an incident.
- Drivers wished to hide the fact that they had committed a crime, including driving without insurance, were afraid for their own safety or feared they were being “set up” by a scam
- Drivers didn’t believe the incident was serious enough
- They had no knowledge of being in an accident
- Drivers judgement was impaired by drink or drugs
If your vehicle is damaged by an uninsured driver or someone who simply fails to stop, you could be left having to pay the excess. Protect yourself today or you could be left having to find £100’s to get back on the road.
Free Insurance
Young drivers and parents looking to buy a new car?
Citroen are offering 3 years free insurance to 18 year olds+ – Citroen Simply Drive. It also comes with routine servicing, roadside assistance, warranty and road fund and not as well advertised it also includes 3 years payment waiver, meaning in the even you are made redundant Citroen Financial Services will waiver up to 6 monthly instalments, giving you time to find a new job. If you are still unemployed after that you are given the option to return the vehicle without further finacial liability. Visit Citroen.co.uk for full details and terms & conditions
Be aware that if you claim on the insurance after an accident there is a £500 excess to pay. – https://info.citroen.co.uk/offers/simply-drive-offer. So why not cover the A?500 excess for 3 years for a one off payment of only A?70.
Peugeot, Ford and VW Polo have also got free insurance deals.
Comparing quotes
Most of us use comparison quotes now, its easy but should you trust the quotes they give you? We obtained quotes from the three most well knownAi??comparison sites.Ai??We looked at cover for a 18 year old male with no no claims discount on a 2009 1.2 Ford Fiesta and added a 63 year old parent as a named driver.
Comparethemarket.com
Look at the screenshot below, the top quote from Hastings (A?1531.49) clearly shows a total excess of A?345, A?95 Compulsory and A?250 Voluntary.Ai??This is with a telematics box fitted and was nearly half the cost of a quote from Churchil with no box (A?3063.81 with A?500 excess). As you can see we tried to get a quote with A?800 excess but the comparethemarket.com site didnt appear to recognise it.
Click for more details and it all looks good, total excess again clearly show as A?345
I’m happy with that so lets go to the Provider and purchase the cover.
Wait a minute what’s this, the excess has jumped up to A?640!Ai??Click on the excess summary and it states that there is an additional A?295 “younger driver excess” on top of the compulsory A?95 and Voluntary A?250 excess.
Comparethemarket.com
Cheapest quote is from Insurethe box at A?1934.75 with A?550 excess on the comparethemarket.com page.
Click on the quote and it explains that the total excess is A?550 for driver 1 and A?350 for driver 2.
Gocompare.com
Hastings Direct Smartmiles scheme comes out as the cheapest but again it has the same problem as on the comparethemarket.com site. It shows the excess to be A?345 on Ai??gocompare.comAi??but when you go to Hastings site it jumps to A?640, thats a little misleading and confusing.
Why its worth shopping around
This shows how the comparison sites work,Ai??they can only show the information they find/are provided from the insurers themselves so its not necessarily their fault when there is a difference when you click through to the insurer. That’s why you should always check double check the details you enter on the insurers page and your documents when they arrive. Dont forget not all of the insurers provide quotes to the comparison sites. Ai??As a young driver having a telematics box is a no brainer, the cost of insurance with one of these is practically half compared to not having one.
Insurance for a young driver?
You could spend hours trawling through comparison sites for cheap quotes but why bother when a professional can do it for you. MyFirstUK are dedicated to finding insurance for young drivers and can help you cut through all the jargon.
Motability Excess
You may not realise it but even as a Motability driver you are still liable to pay excess in the event of damage to your vehicle. Whats more on 1/1/16 they increased the amount you have to pay. If you are over 25 its A?100, under 20 you will have to find A?500 and drivers between 21 & 24 have A?300 to pay. Source:Ai??http://www.motability.co.uk/about-motability/news-and-information/insurance-excess-changes
Be prepared
With one in five new drivers havingAi??an accident in the first 12 months, we really should do more to prepareAi??them. Here are our tips to make dealing with an accident stress free.
- Keeping important information in your car could be dangerous as if its broken into at best itsAi??lost butAi??it can potentially be usedAi??as identify theft and cloning. That’s where your phone comes in, use the notes app or even create a new contact for your insurer, include the claim department telephone number and your policy number.
- If you have a crash with another car, use your phone to take down the other persons insurance details and take a pictures of the damage to yours and the other vehicle.Ai??Also take a picture of the view of the road from where you had the accident.
- If there is anybody else around who saw the accident but was not a passenger or a friend relative of anyone involved as for their details too as they can be used as witness.
- Dont worry about whose fault it was in reality its not your decision, your insurer will take care of that.
You Need Excess Insurance
New year, new website, new blog. Insurance for drivers is expensive, particularly young drivers. A high excess is one way to reduceAi??your premium but will hurt your pocketAi??you when you need to claim. For some choosing a low excess isn’t even an option as insurers can insist on a high excess.
Excess Insurance protects you against suddenly having to find hundreds of pounds after a crash; if you cant pay the excess you cant get your car repaired. Wepayanyexcess.comAi??will pay your excess directly to the repairer, saving you the hassle ofAi??paying out and waiting to claim it back.
Even if you don’t claim, taking excess insurance could still save you money because if you know the excess will be covered you can opt for a higher excess, reducing your premium. The cost of the excess insurance is likely to be less than the amount saved by having a higher excess.
Chris Sharpe
