I know there are other threads on insurance, but this is a particular issue that I only discovered today.

The excess on my fully comp/agreed value policy is stated as £50 on my insurance certificate.

However, I had a letter from the company dealing with my claim this morning saying my excess was £400

After speaking to FJ they've clarified the issue.

The excess on my policy is £50.

However because I'm under 25 there is a 'compulsory age related excess' of £350! Just for being under 25!

Now, I am not aware that this was pointed out to me at any stage and it doesn't appear on any of the documentation that I've read.

I have, however, had a chat and they've reduced it to £150 so the overall excess I'm gonna end up paying is £200, although apparently I can claim that back from the third party.

But still, have any of the yoof here ever had this pointed out to them when taking out insurance?

Sam,

I must admit I find this kind of thing completely baffling. It came up for me on my Smart when I got whacked by a sleep deprived woman driving a jag (who then admitted full liablility), my insurers kept talking about my excess???

Like you given that this was someone else's fault how on earth does my excess have any bearing whatsoever on the claim?

It was their fault therefore they or their insurance should be paying, I don't understand why you as the damaged party should be paying anything towards the repairs.

Maybe someone else can explain this to me. It seems to have something to do with that fact that it is a comprehensive insurance policy. Fair enough if I choose to drive into a tree or another car I would expect to have to pay my excess, but not when someone else hits me.

In fact it was this issue where the AA Insurance singularly failed to process this claim over 6 months which lead me to fall out permanently with all insurers so I now just go with the cheapest available and hope for the best (£64 fully comp for 2cv this year)

Sorry - Rant Over
Chris

The clue is in the fact it was your insurers who you were asking to pay out.

If you'd gone direct to the other person's insurers, and they'd accepted liability, then there wouldn't have been any question about excess. If they'd not accepted liability, though, you'd have not seen a penny.

Since you were claiming from your insurer, they'll pay out regardless of liability - but you'll pay your excess towards the claim UNLESS the other insurer accepts full liability.

Yes - I've been told to submit a receipt and as the 3rd party has admitted full libility, they will refund my excess. Why FJ can't do this for me I don't know.

The weird thing though was this "under 25s" compulsory excess that they failed to mention.

It's a big hobby horse for me - that all under 25s are penalized with being blind, speeding, drunken, dope smoking, irresponsible boy racers with baseball caps. Why do I have to pay more to cover the dumb young f*ckers who drive like utter twats? And also, for that matter, the half blind, crawling around the roads at 15mph folks who are also far more likely to fail to stop and shunt people from behind than I am?

It's called "actuarial probability".



Umm, you don't. Unless you claim.



Don't forget that premiums are considerably higher for the elderly - they're more likely to claim - albeit not as high as for the young - because the claims are likely to be smaller.

Thanks for responding Adrian, silly of me to talk to my insurance company about an insurance claim I guess. I didn't ask to claim on my insurance policy, in fact I was pretty clear with them many times that I was not at fault, I guess they assumed that and never told me...

Still in my defence the AA said they were going to handle the claim for me and get all of the money from the other insurance company on my behalf for the repairs, they just failed utterly in doing this.

The other driver had admitted liability to me and their insurance company so there should have been no problem.

In the end after letters of complaint to the AA they gave up and told me I should contact the other insurer myself like you said, but after their months and months of pissing about I had lost interest in the whole thing and cancelled my 2 car policies with them, there wasn't a huge amount of damage to my car anyway.

Sorry for the thread-jacking Sam

Interesting reading this thread, my dad is having issues with his claim.

His Xantia was hit on the rear quarter by an out of control 4x4 that had skidded on ice/snow apparently Up hill. The Xantia was parked off the road on a private driveway.

Since my father was asleep in bed and the car parked off the road there is no question of liability however the person who's fault it was has been dragging his feet and after we chased up found that no mention of the accident had been made to his insurance company that we had the claim in for. Confused yet?

My dad has now contacted his insurance to advise them of the situation (he's fully comp) and they advised that he had a excess of £200 ontop of the £150 he agreed to? He has argued that this is not what he agreed to but his insurance company are advising that he pay it and they claim it back from the 3rd parties insurance company along with the repair cost.

With all this nonsense going back and forth, how much do you think it is likely to cost in total. The damage probably only amounts to £250 and if the chap paid that then everything could have been sorted out much faster and cheaper.

Insurance does seem to be a largescale con.

That's very interesting Matt, also, did it matter that you dad's car was on a private driveway?

No not really apart from highlighing what a total plank the other driver was. I mean to loose control driving up a hill in a 4x4 in Snow?! Its not even like its a steep hill or anything.

I actually wrote into landrover world magazine and suggested that 4x4 drivers take an additional driving test as it seems that they generally seem to be incapable of seeing out of or controlling their vehicles on a daily basis. It got star letter (probably due to the amount of letters it generated) and I won £100 for it. Its a valid point tho.

As Adrian pointed out further down, premiums are just based on statistics. No one should get offended by this though once you get over 30 with no claims history you can start to feel smug.

I had a bad crash in the UK over Xmas. My car [I paid 900 Euros for] was a write off. The accident was entirely the other persons fault. I decided to handle the claim myself and not involve my insurers at all.

I am like a dog with a bone with these things.

All achieved with email and scanned documents here from France.

They offered me £2K..... I settled at £5K

It pays to get control of these things yourself and not give in.

Also top tip told to me by someone in the know. If you are sent a cheque it settlement of a claim but it is not as much as you want or expect DONT cash it, tempting though it might be.