What is the difference between the “Voluntary excesses” and the “Accidental Damage Exces”?
I google a bit and I find:
Accidental Damage Excess
This is the amount of money that you would be liable to pay if you make a claim against your own Insurance Company, in the event of your vehicle being damaged, and a claim is made to have the vehicle repaired. (Damage caused by theft or attempted theft is covered under the FTXS) This type of Excess only applies to Fully Comprehensive Policies.
So if I have
Voluntary excesses = £500 and
Accidental Damage Excess = £950
That’s why you should always try to bargain the volentary excess down as low as you can get them without paying silly premiums. Worth the effort though. Just re insured my daughters car and got the excess down to the company’s minimum of £100 (from their £400 in the original quote) for just an extra £20 paid. If you do the maths, it’s a no brain needed job.
I wanted to have a cheaper quote so I increased the voluntary excess to 500; but at the same time the insurance increased the “Accidental Damage Excess” to 950, it is too much. the excess is a quarter of the value of the bike, I got to find a cheaper company.
Going by the range of quotes I got for my daughter, it seems a real free market out there at present. (Worst case £430+ with £400 min. excess, no bargaining, down to £330 ish with £100 excess.)
Watch for on line quotes being wrong. Check on the phone before signing up and take the name of the person on the other end, record the date/time in case there are problems later.
Re excess - see the Wikipedia article on moral hazard.
If here was no excess there would be no cost to the rider of having a crash and making a claim so people would make more claims. There would be more situations where false claims made sense etc. It also reduces the insurrance company’s liabilities allowing them to reduce premiums and be more compentative.
Note that if you don’t have any claims for accidents, or only claim where the other party is at fault you never actually pay a penny of your excess. It is only paid by people who are at least partly at fault for accidents. That sounds fair to me. Excesses reduce the cost of insurrance for everyone, but are only paid by those at fault for claims.
Be caregul with voluntary - the assumption is there that in taking a larger voluntary excess it will reduce your premium. That is often not the case, you’re just volunteering to pay more for the hell of it!
I once suggested to my (then) insurance company that I applied an “excess” to their premium. I’d pay, say half, and if I needed to make a clAIm, I’d pay the other half then.
They went a bit ape on me, so I wrote the whole thing up as a letter to my (then) national m/c magazine taking the ****.
The company refused me insurance the next year, as did several other.
As my Dad said many years ago, “insurance is for paying, not for claiming.”
