Chris_B Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 If somebody in the know (Jon, hint, hint!) could advise please. And yes, I did search and read other posts before asking... I'm buying a car for the wife, list price of £32,795 OTR. I've got a better deal from Audi Insurance than from anybody else (once they realised NIG had quoted me cheaper than their first attempt), so that's sorted. However, the dealer's finance chappy has to mention GAP insurance by law apparently. Audi want £399 against GAP that they claim is normally £499. Now that seems quite expensive given that I read that they have a £15k claim limit, and http://www.surfandprotect.com/ and http://www.click4gap.co.uk/ both can offer cover cheaper (£349 and £309 respectively) both with higher claim limits (£20k and £25k respectively), so that's sorted - Audi are a bad deal. But will I actually want GAP insurance? The wife drives about 4000 miles a year at present, and I will perhaps drive 1000 miles a year in it (based on miles in her last car). Does the fact that it will be low-miles mean I should do it , as insurers are bound to want to under-pay me terribly should it be written off? I assume the GAP/RTI cover also kicks in if it's written off by an uninsured/unknown 3rd party and we have to claim on our insurance? Is there any situation where GAP/RTI just won't be worth it on a new car? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mook Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 GAP insurance has become one of the more recent ways of dealers extracting more money from you, and I believe they also get paid commission on it for signing you up. Ignoring the value of your new car temporarily (no offence!) if your car costs £20K from the dealer - new or not - and it gets written off as soon as you drive it out of the showroom or a month later, it is more than likely that your insurance company will not cough up the difference between the value at that time and the cost of replacing it with another car of exactly the same spec. Aside from whether the Audi GAP insurance is a good deal or not, it is the difference that you need to be looking at, not the total value of the car. So with your car at £32,795, if it gets written off after six months, the insurance company might cough up, say £25K. The GAP insurance is supposed to cover the rest. I've never bothered with it myself, but I'm prepared to take the risk. The uninsured/unknown issue is not relevant, as you would be claiming on your own insurance, i.e. an insurance company would be forking out for it. Key advice? Read absolutely every single line of the GAP agreement. Very carefully HTH. If not, sorry for tapping a load of stuff that you may already know... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 [ QUOTE ] The uninsured/unknown issue is not relevant, as you would be claiming on your own insurance, i.e. an insurance company would be forking out for it. [/ QUOTE ] Ah, now there's a point. I hadn't considered the question of what happens if a 3rd party writes the car off and their insurer have a valuation on the low side of reasonable. Being temporarily rather stupid, I was making the assumption that if somebody else is at fault, it's all OK as their insurance "takes care of everything" - that's a mental slip I should know better than to make! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdiesel Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 Chris, the cost to Audi is £300 for there RTI GAP (Thats what I paid on my A6, and I was working for them at the time). This cost decreases on a sliding scale, based on how many policies they have sold. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mook Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 Having had one car written off about eight years ago by a 17 year old twonk in a Nova and another one seriously damaged two years ago by another twonk in, you guessed it, a Nova, I spent a considerable amount of time arguing with the third party's insurers about the settlement value of the car and/or compensation. Another thread perhaps, but never, ever, ever accept the first three settlement offers made by an insurance company... IMO, of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 [ QUOTE ] Chris, the cost to Audi is £300 for there RTI GAP (Thats what I paid on my A6, and I was working for them at the time). This cost decreases on a sliding scale, based on how many policies they have sold. [/ QUOTE ] Ah, great info, thanks! So, they're trying to rip me £99 at the very least eh? I doubt they're selling many policies that way, so they probably haven't dropped anywhere down the scale yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 I must admit, there's a lot of twonks in little Novas/Saxos/Fiestas/etc on the roads these days, and even if I naievely assume they're all insured, no doubt the usually undeclared twonk treatment of ICE, neons, LEDs, big wheels, spoilers and "blowtorch to the springs" lowering means their insurance is invalid anyway. Perhaps GAP's a good idea. Just not Audi's GAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 Yeah I only paid £300 for my GAP policy for the S4 too. You should be able to beat them down. Don't forget though if you are buying brand new most insurance policies replace with new if the car is written off in the first year. GAP is only useful from the 2nd year onwards or if the car is secondhand / ex demo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_C Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 [ QUOTE ] Don't forget though if you are buying brand new most insurance policies replace with new if the car is written off in the first year. [/ QUOTE ] Chris would potentially be buying one of the very last C5 allroads from Audis stockpile of old Avant shells: Wonder how things would proceed in the event of a write-off inside 12 months when replacing it 'for new & equal spec' might not be possible Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 Yes, that was a consideration whenever I saw/heard the phrase "new for old" in relation to insurance. I guess with RTI, I'd just get my £32,795 back minus my insurance excess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdiesel Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 Audis GAP pays your excess as well. Its well worth having IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scooby_simon Posted September 21, 2005 Report Share Posted September 21, 2005 [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Don't forget though if you are buying brand new most insurance policies replace with new if the car is written off in the first year. [/ QUOTE ] Chris would potentially be buying one of the very last C5 allroads from Audis stockpile of old Avant shells: Wonder how things would proceed in the event of a write-off inside 12 months when replacing it 'for new & equal spec' might not be possible Ian [/ QUOTE ] Now that is 100% a question of I_J Would be V interested in the result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booster Posted September 22, 2005 Report Share Posted September 22, 2005 The dealer saying that he has to mention Gap insurance "by law" is absolute garbage! He's just using that as an angle to get you thinking about the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdiesel Posted September 22, 2005 Report Share Posted September 22, 2005 [ QUOTE ] The dealer saying that he has to mention Gap insurance "by law" is absolute garbage! He's just using that as an angle to get you thinking about the subject. [/ QUOTE ] No this is true. Car sales now fall under FSA regulations (as of January 14th of this year), and therefore the dealer has to at least offer and explain to the customer any available insurances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedtb Posted September 22, 2005 Report Share Posted September 22, 2005 [ QUOTE ] GAP is only useful from the 2nd year onwards or if the car is secondhand / ex demo. [/ QUOTE ] Not necessarily true - although a good point. Let me clarify. Many motor insurers do indeed offer new for old replacement within the first 12 months normally providing that you are the 1st registered keeper of the vehicle. If your vehicle is written off within the first 12 months, and your insurance company has a New for Old scheme, there are two main things that you would be best advised to confirm with the insurer. The first is that most companies will apply a timescale within which the physical replacement vehicle must be available. Some are much longer than others but if for example the time scale was 90 days, and the vehicle couldn't be sourced within this time, your Insurane company would resort to a normal market value payout. The GAP Insurance policy would step in here to make up the difference. The second issue is that many New for Old Schemes don't cover accessories that may have been fitted to the vehicle when you picked it up. If you've spent a couple of grand on accessories there's not really a great deal to be achieved by having the vehicle replaced without the accessories. I can't speak for all GAP Insurance policies but I can say that ours do indeed cover dealer or manufacturer fitted accessories. In which case you would be able to decline the insurance company's offer to physically replace the vehicle and instead accept a market value payout whereby the GAP Insurance would make up the difference. Furthermore let me address a possible issue of confusion. To my knowledge the Audi GAP and certainly the click4gap.co.uk RTI policy is the equivalent of the SurfandProtect.com silver policy (pays the difference between the insurance company payout and the original purchase price paid). There has been mention in this forum of a premium of £349 @ Surf and Protect. The £349 premium relates to our Gold policy which supersedes the Silver (RTI policy) in two ways. The first is that the maximum claims limit (maximum difference that will be paid) is £20,000 rather than £10,000 and secondly that the payout for the Gold policy will cover the difference between your Insurance payout and the cost of replacing the vehicle like for like (or as near as possible) even if the replacement vehicle is more expensive than you originally paid. (Only available for cars at first registration) I hope this helps to clarify a few issues and doesn't appear simply as an advertisement for SurfandProtect.com which is not our intention. Our research shows that 9 out of 10 people don't actually know what GAP Insurance is or how it can help them, so we monitor and take part in many internet forums in an effort to clarify the product, its features and benefits, and ultimately raise the product awareness dispelling some popular misconceptions about it along the way. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2005 [ QUOTE ] we monitor and take part in many internet forums [/ QUOTE ] Good old HTTP referrer logs, eh? Thanks for the input, especially clarifying what Gold cover entails. If I were to cover an allroad Limited Edition now, what would happen once that model was no longer available and a new model was launched - would the Gold policy pay to make up the value of the nearest model in the range, or would it pay to replace an equavalent specification? In particular, the Limited Edition is an "end of life kicker" and has a lot of extra features at no cost, and the nearest equivalent model in a year's time might be an SE model allroad without all the features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedtb Posted September 22, 2005 Report Share Posted September 22, 2005 The Gold policy works on the basis of allowing you to replace the car new for old to the same or equivalent specification level of the vehicle that was written off. If the specific model of vehicle you owned was no longer available at the time of making the claim, then the payout woud be dictated by the nearest equivalent. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2005 OK, thanks for the input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted September 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2005 Just to tie this up, I PM'd David (DBurns), who responded very promptly (and on a Sunday too!), and answered some specific questions I had with regard to actually buying the policy online, which I've now just done. Thanks David. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedtb Posted September 27, 2005 Report Share Posted September 27, 2005 Hi Chris, Thanks, I'm pleased I was able to help you. If anybody has any specific questions/issues/comments etc relating to GAP Insurance that they would like my assistance with, please don't hesitate to ask. Of course, by default I'm gonna talk specifically about our policies however if your question/issue is something that our company can't help with we're professional enough to point customers in the direction of other companies that can. Regards David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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