{"id":5330,"date":"2019-01-02T09:30:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T09:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.ingenie.com\/young-drivers-guide\/?p=5539"},"modified":"2019-05-01T12:31:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T11:31:00","slug":"choosing-your-insurance-excess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ingenie.com\/young-drivers-guide\/choosing-your-insurance-excess","title":{"rendered":"Choosing your insurance excess"},"content":{"rendered":"

I'll be straight with you: insurance is FULL of jargon. Premium this, certificate of that. It's hard enough to get your head around if you actually know a bit about how it works. If you're just trying to get your first car on the road, it's next to impossible.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Your excess is one of the most important things to understand before you buy insurance - because getting it wrong can have very expensive consequences at a time when you really don't need it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

What is an excess?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

Your excess is the amount you pay towards a claim on your insurance. If you crash and it's your fault, you'll pay this much of whatever it costs to get you back on the road.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

If a crash is found to be someone else's fault, their insurance will pay your damages and you won't have to pay an excess.<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Most of the time, you'll be given a compulsory excess (what you HAVE to pay) and a voluntary excess, which you can choose on top of that. The more you choose for your voluntary excess, the less your insurance will cost upfront.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

That's where the problem starts<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

Sounds good, right? You chuck in a \u00a3500 voluntary excess on top of your \u00a3350 compulsory excess and the amount you have to pay for your insurance today drops. Magic! <\/p>\r\n\r\n

No. Remember why you're buying insurance: yes, to stick to the law - but also to protect you from the ginormous cost of crashing<\/strong>. If you crash, you will have to pay that excess. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

It may seem unlikely but it's not. Even if you never get in a bad crash and you just ding your boot up a bit on a bollard, your insurance company won't give you any money towards it if it's not over your excess. Which, in the example above, adds up to \u00a3850. You get nothing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

It might not even be a crash; you might get your stereo nicked, someone could carve something gross into your paintwork - a snail could crawl into your wiring and cause havoc. Life happens. You can't just cross your fingers and assume you won't need to claim on your insurance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\"car-insurance-excess\"\r\n\r\n

If you crash, you will have to pay both your voluntary and compulsory excesses<\/strong> towards the cost of your claim.<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Choose a voluntary excess you can afford<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

If you couldn't rustle up \u00a3850 tomorrow, you can't afford to pick that as your excess. It is SO IMPORTANT that you don't choose a number that would be very hard for you to pay if you needed to claim.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

If the compulsory excess is \u00a3350, that's already quite a lot of money. Think honestly about how much more than that you could get your hands on if you had to. You really don't want to get in a scary crash and then slowly realise you have to pay \u00a3850 to benefit from the insurance policy you bought.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Test your insurance excess knowledge<\/h2>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/quiz-choice> \r\n\t\t<\/quiz-choice> \r\n\t\t<\/quiz-choice> \r\n\t\t<\/quiz-choice>\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t

A: Correct!<\/p>\r\n\t\t\t

You're officially an excess expert.<\/p>\r\n\t\t<\/quiz-answer>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t

A: Wrong!<\/p>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

The correct answer was \u00a3450. Remember, the total amount you'd pay towards a claim would be both the voluntary and compulsory excesses added together. <\/p>\r\n\t\t<\/quiz-answer>\r\n\t<\/quiz-question>\r\n\t<\/quiz>\r\n\r\nUpdated: 02\/01\/2019<\/small>\r\n\t\r\n\t

Heard a few other insurance terms you're unsure of? Check out our insurance jargon buster<\/a>.<\/h4><\/div>\r\n\t\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll be straight with you: insurance is FULL of jargon. Premium this, certificate of that. It’s hard enough to get your head around if you actually know a bit about how it works. If you’re just trying to get your first car on the road, it’s next to impossible. Your excess is one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":5333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-insurance","car-insurance"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n