Honest John: hidden costs of cancelling a car insurance policy Telegraph.co.uk
10.06.09
A.H., Plymouth
That’s what can happen if you switch insurance every year. First-year policies
are very restricted. Had you made a major claim, the policy could have been
cancelled after the payout and you would have had to start again. With some
policies there is no refund at all if you cancel within the first year. This
is one good reason for sticking with the same insurer even if it doesn’t
offer you the lowest quote.
Faults pretences
I have owned a Jaguar XKR from new since 2004. It has done approximately
14,000 miles and recently I was charged £850 for its 60,000-mile service.
When I complained of the ridiculous costs, the dealer knocked off about
£100. Last week I was driving home and a ‘gearbox fault’ message came up
(this happened before, when the car was six months old). I breathed a sigh
of relief when I found my extended warranty ran until the end of the month.
The car was collected and taken to the dealership under the extended
warranty agreement. Jaguar initially said “a spurious code” had thrown up a
fault in the system, possibly linked to the connections/wiring. On further
investigation, it turned out that after spending a day being analysed, it
was diagnosed as a “resident memory fault”. The dealer now says I have to
pay for this as the warranty does not cover the “fault” as no mechanical
work was undertaken. The engineer told me that there is not a fault after
all.
Source:
Finding A Good Deal On Your Rental Car Excess Insurance
When you are arranging the insurance for your rental car it may be worth thinking about taking out rental car excess insurance.
This is because with the basic car rental insurance deals available through the car rental companies you are not completely covered and may still be liable for some costs should you be unfortunate enough to be involved in an accident or suffer some damage to the rental car.
Collision damage waiver is the basic insurance providing cover for damage to the rental car. With this type of policy you will still be liable for damage to any areas of the car excluded from the policy cover. These exclusions are likely to include damage to the windscreen, tyres, roof or undercarriage. You may also have to pay excess.
The policy excess is the portion of costs of the damage that you are liable to pay even if you have insurance in place. If the actual costs are less than the excess you pay the actual costs. If they are more you pay the excess amount and the insurance policy covers the rest. So if the policy has 750 pounds excess and the claim for damage totals 1000 pounds, it is you that will need to pay the first 750 pounds of the total of 1000 pounds.
Third party is the basic insurance which covers you for injury to another person or damage to their vehicle or property. Although by law in the UK this means unlimited liability for rental cars, there can still be an excess. So there’s no upper limit for payment on the policy but there may be a lower limit.
Given that excesses can be as much as 1500 pounds you could be liable to pay a substantial amount should you be involved in an incident.
Rental car excess insurance can provide cover against these costs. It can totally remove excess responsibility or at least reduce it.
The car rental company will probably offer to sell you this type of top-up insurance when you pick up the car. They will quote the price as a daily rate and when multiplied by the number of days you are renting the car for, this can end up being a substantial amount.
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