Excess Payments for Auto Insurance
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Excess payments on auto insurance are the fixed contributions that you need to pay every time that you need to have your car repaired with the help of your policy. Usually this payment is directly paid to the garage where you get the car repaired. You pay once you pick up the car after they have done their services. If the car is said to be a write-off, the auto insurance policy will reduce the excess from the settlement payment that they give you.
If an accident was the fault of the other driver’s, and his insurer says that this is correct, you can reclaim the excess payment from that person’s auto insurance policy. What happens though when the other person does not carry insurance?
Every motorist knows that Section 143 of the Road Traffic Act requires them to carry insurance in case they cause any damage to other motorists. But despite the law there are still people who do not carry auto insurance. It is quite difficult to estimate how many people there actually are since this is not something that you usually report.
There are, however, rough estimates that about 5% of vehicles are not insured. This 5% pose great costs to motorists that do have insurance and they become a great risk to other people on the road. This is really becoming a big problem for our society, and it’s why you should have collision auto insurance.
Uninsured driving has its own victims. If you get into an accident and the driver who caused it is not insured, you will have to ask the Motor Insurers’ Bureau to pay for the repair costs. Either this or your insurer will take care of it. This means that if you get into an accident with a driver that is uninsured, you can still get your car fixed but you do have to shoulder the excess payments and you cannot reclaim this from anybody.
Compulsory excesses are the smallest amount of excess payment that an auto insurance provider can accept on the policy. This depends on several details such as your personal information and driving history. It also has to do with which insurance company you deal with. Younger drivers usually have more excesses than older ones.
A voluntary excess, on the other hand, is something that you do if you want to get lower auto insurance premiums. You can increase this by more than that demanded by the company. This is the added amount that you pay aside from the compulsory excess. Bigger excesses mean less risk for the insurer so your premium should be much lower. It’s also a way to get cheap auto insurance quotes.
Prior to paying the excess to the repair garage, see to it that they have repaired your car well. Keep the receipt that they give you since you have to give this if you want to reclaim from the third party’s policy.
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