How I Saved Over £150 on My Car Insurance With a Simple Excess Trick

Car insurance prices are horrendous at the moment and they don’t look to be changing anytime soon. However, there’s a simple trick you can use to drive down (pardon the pun) the cost of your insurance. Rather surprisingly, it involves paying out for another insurance product.

To say I was shocked by my car insurance renewal this year is an understatement, to say the least. But instead of selling a vital organ, I decided to look at how to reduce that price. And it didn’t take long to find this simple method.

Motor excess insurance

If you’ve ever rented a car on holiday, you might know about excess insurance. It’s one of those many add-ons they’re keen to sell you, and you probably ignore it. The benefit is that if you have an accident (and you’re at fault), the insurance company will cover the cost of your excess.

Well, this kind of insurance isn’t just restricted to rental cars… you can get it for your own vehicle too. And the good news is, it could save you a decent amount on your car insurance premium.

Is it a pain to take out?

This is a fairly simple insurance product and a quote should only take a few minutes. Some motor excess companies may want to know details such as how long you’ve had your car, how many miles you drive and what you use it for. Some, aren’t so bothered.

You then choose your excess amount. Most policies start at £250 and can go up to as much as £2,000.

How much can it save?

Because car insurance prices vary so much between people, how much you can actually save depends on your insurance premium. Generally, the more it costs, the more you can save.

For example, a 50-year-old lady who drives a 1-litre Fiat Punto (do they still exist?) will usually have quite a low premium. In this case, bumping up the excess may save a bit of money, but the motor excess cover probably wouldn’t be worthwhile.

But I decided to check it out for my car using Compare The Market (other price comparison sites are available). My car’s fairly speedy, so it’s not the cheapest to insure.

My prices

If I didn’t add a voluntary excess, the price for my cheapest insurance quote would come to £780.56 with esure. However, that did include a compulsory excess of £650.

Increasing my voluntary excess to £800 gave me a much lower quote of £578.75 and a fairly eye-watering total excess of £1,450.

Then it was off to find some quotes for excess insurance. I tried several companies and the best quote for £1,500 worth of cover came from a company called EasyGAP, offering it for just £49.99.

The final damage

So, bumping up my excess and taking out the excess insurance policy, my total bill came to £628.74. That’s a massive saving of £151.82.

Not only that, but if I had an accident with the cheaper cover (and it was my fault), I wouldn’t have to pay a penny towards the excess – it would all be covered thanks to the excess insurance!

And it wasn’t just esure that reduced the price drastically if I increased my voluntary excess. Tesco reduced their quote by almost 40%.

Cashback sites

Don’t forget to use a cashback site when getting quotes for your car insurance policy. Through TopCashback, I received another £25 back after taking out my policy.

There is a downside

It’s not all good news and there’s something you need to be aware of. The insurance process can be slow. If you’re involved in an accident and you’re at fault, you will need to pay the excess bill to your car insurance company. Then, you can claim that fee back from your motor insurance excess company.

That means you’ll need to be able to get your hands on quite a large amount of money until your excess insurance pays out. If you have savings or a credit card, this shouldn’t be a problem. Otherwise, this might not be a great product for you.

Sites that offer motor excess insurance

A few sites worth getting quotes from:

• ALA Insurance
• EasyGAP
• Questor Insurance

Further reading

Why not check out other ways to save on your car insurance?