The car insurance excess is the agreed upon amount your insurance company requires you to pay for any repairs that are being made to your vehicle due to a claim being filed.
Your insurance company will determine what your excess payment will be when you start your policy. The excess payments in most cases will be made directly to the garage or mechanic that is repairing the vehicle, the insurance will send the remaining amount due directly to them or send a check to you that you will need to bring to the garage.
When you file a claim where another motorist is responsible for the repairs done to your vehicle they may reimburse you the excess you had to pay or pay it their selves and deduct it from your settlement amount.
Millions of drivers are on the roadways with no insurance at all or they have coverage that is insufficient for covering all your repairs or medical expenses. Although it is illegal to operate a vehicle without insurance there are many people who still do it. The excess amount you have to pay may not be able to be reimbursed if you are involved in an accident with a driver with inadequate insurance coverage. Protection is offered from your insurer against underinsured or uninsured motorists any medical expenses or repairs to your vehicle not covered by the other driver will be covered by your insurer with the exception of the excess amount you owe.
More than 5% of drivers on the roads of UK are uninsured. The insurance companies offer protection but because they are at risk of having to cover these uninsured drivers for their faults it can raise the cost of insurance premiums.
The minimum excess that your insurance provider will accept for your policy is the compulsory excess. This amount will change from one driver to the next. The insurer will use your vehicle type, age, experience driving, as well as your driving record to determine your compulsory excess payment. The amount will vary from $50 to $500 or $1000 depending on your criteria and the insurers guidelines.
A Voluntary excess is where you pay a larger excess amount even if you qualify for a much smaller one. Any agent should be able to explain the differences these excess amounts will do to your policy price and premium amount. The excess amount should be kept low enough to be affordable but not so low that it raises your premium very much.
You need to realize that if you have your car in the garage getting repaired due to an insurance claim the garage will not be able to release the vehicle to you until they receive full payment for repairs. The insurance company will pay the sum they are supposed to but the final payment will normally be the excess amount of the policy. This is why it is extremely important to be able to afford the excess amount you agreed on so that you will be able to easily come up with it when needed.
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