If you’ve been shopping around for car insurance lately you might have wondered what voluntary excess is when it comes to your cover.
As a new and/or young driver you might have questioned this and wondered how much you should select on the car comparison website.
In general, there are a lot of difficult, hard to read terms with car insurance.
So in this blog post, I’m going to tell you what you need to know about voluntary excess.
Types Of Car Insurance Cover
The first thing for us to quickly look at is the types of car insurance cover that is available to you when choosing your car insurance.
There’s really only two types:
- Comprehensive – this type of car insurance will cover you and the other person.
- Third Party – when compared to comprehensive, this will only cover the other person and not you, this is often why it’s cheaper.
So why does this matter?
The type of car insurance cover you pick will greatly affect the decision to choose a sensible voluntary excess when comparing car insurance deals.
What Is Voluntary Excess?
When picking your car insurance cover, you’ll be asked to provide a voluntary excess amount.
This question will likely show up towards the end of the application form.
Put simply, the voluntary excess is the amount that YOU have to pay in addition to the compulsory excess which is chosen by your insurer.
For example:
You decide to select a £250 voluntary excess, you’re under the age of 25 and your insurer has calculated that your compulsory excess is £500.
This means that in the event of an insurance claim, you’ll be required to pay £750 towards the cost of the claim.
Sounds simple right?
Well, it is pretty straightforward, and I hope that I’ve made it a little easier for you to understand what the voluntary excess is.
Do I have To Choose A Voluntary Excess?
You’ve got to think carefully when deciding how much voluntary excess you want to put down – it doesn’t have to be any.
That’s right, you can simply choose to pay nothing for your voluntary excess.
I recommend that you always make sure you’re able to afford paying towards the cost of an insurance claim – put the money aside in your savings account until you need it!
And let’s hope that you don’t need it right?
Getting Cheaper Car Insurance With A Higher Voluntary Excess
When you choose a voluntary excess, you might be able to get cheaper car insurance.
This is because you’re essentially paying a sum of money towards the claim.
The funny thing is – I tried this.
I increased my voluntary excess when getting a car insurance quote, but the overall car insurance cost didn’t come down…
And guess what…
Yours likely won’t as well!
I recommend a sensible voluntary excess amount of around £300, this seems reasonable.
Is The Voluntary Excess The Same For All Policy Drivers?
Your car insurance excess might not be the same for every driver on your policy. The best way to check is to check in the policy schedule.
How To Get Cheaper Car Insurance
One of the factors decided when it comes to getting cheaper car insurance is related to the voluntary excess that you pay.
One way to get cheaper car insurance is to simply increase your voluntary excess by a few hundred pounds.
You can even select a few thousand pounds if you want to, but seems unrealistic.
By choosing an amount closer to £500 for a voluntary excess might lower your overall car insurance by a few hundred each year.
And…
If you don’t make a claim, you’ve lowered the overall cost anyway.
Black Box Car Insurance
Another way to get cheaper car insurance that is related to the voluntary excess is black box car insurance.
This is a way of getting cheaper insurance by having a telematics box, roughly the size of a large smartphone fitted to your car.
It records your driving style and history and sends this data to your car insurer.
