Insurance tips

[jonnyboy]

Firstly I apologise if Im teaching granny to suck eggs here but I thought Id share some info Ive gathered whilst sorting out inurance for the new 172.

I got quoted £2000 from direct line to start with (Im 23 6 points and 1 accident) but if you ask to increase the voulantry excess it brings your premuim down a hell of a lot. So I put it up to £800 and the premuim came down to £1400. It might seem a bit mad but the way I look at it, unless your claiming over £800 on your insurance its not worth it anyway because of the loss of your no claims the following year.

Anyway another thing direct line do is give you another discount if you take out your home insurance with them as well. So I did that and got the premium down from £2000 to just under £1300 for the year. Thats £300 more than I was paying to drive a 1.4 Bravo. Just got to not have a crash

 

[mikeherts]

True, but unless you have extra protection in your policy, you have to pay your excess out initially whether its your fault or not and I wouldnt fancy paying £800 out if someone else smacked into my car!

 

[jonnyboy]

well yeah but all you need is 1 claim free year and your laughing. Just checked the policy details and you dont have to stump up the excess. If you make a cliam yourself they just deduct the excess from the payout. Obviously if you hit someone else your in the sh*t, but if you bump someone and cause £500 of damage, just sort it without going through the iunsurance. Might even put them off faking a whiplash claim too.

 

[1.6 16v]

Well by increasing his excess by an estimate of £700 (probably from £100 to £800) he brought his cover down by £600. So it depends what risk you think you are. Id say the chances of having an accident in a year are less then 50% in which case it makes financial sense to increase the excess.

I didnt have to pay my excess when someone broke into my car and stole about £1000 worth of audio equipment. So not in all cases do you have to pay your excess.

I think it works like this. You get given a set excess, lets say £100. Then you choose to have a voluntary excess on top of this, lets say £700. If you have an accident and its the other guys fault you pay the £100 and that only. If you have an accident and its your fault you pay both totalling £800, but only if you get your own car repaired and not the other car.

Think thats right.

 

[Ad]

You did pay the excess on the break in. They will have deducted it from the total loss value. E.g. for example if you write off you car and its new, you get list price minus your excess. You always pay full excess in an accident until fault is decided. Upon the claim being settled and the thrid party being at fault you then get the excess back.

 

[mikeherts]

Personally Id rather keep my excess low but if you suffer from high premiums that need beating down, then it sounds like a pretty good idea!

 

[1.6 16v]

I didnt pay my excess. They replaced like for like. Also gave me £80 for 8 cds with us both mutually agreeing £80 was a fair price.

You dont always get list price either. To get a decent price bartering needs to be done