GAP Insurance

[diverdave]

Whilst ordering my new Prius the salesman has been trying to sell me GAP Insurance for £400, has anyone else bought this and do you think that it is worth it ?

[FROSTYBALLS]

One can buy GAP insurance far cheaper online, plus one can also get longer policies. We buy GAP insurance for both of our cars and consider worth it. One company is ALA and one can get a further discount through Toyota Owners Club - 

 

[alan333]

As per Frosty's advice above - you'll get it cheaper online, probably about half the price.  ALA seem well respected, and we have ALA policies on both our cars (but we've never had to claim).

If your car gets written off or nicked, your car insurance will pay you the market value of the car, which will be less than it would cost to go out and buy a replacement car.  GAP insurance pays the 'gap' between these two amounts.

There are different types of GAP insurance, and the options differ depending on whether you buy the car outright or pay finance etc.  Basically you can have policies which pay off the remaining finance, or pay out enough to buy a similar car, or pay out enough to replace your car with a brand new one etc.

Consider buying a new car at, say, £20k.  After a few months it gets written off, and the car's market value is about three quarters of the new price, so your insurance pays you £15k.  But it would cost you £18k to go and buy a replacement at a few months old (if you could find one) - so you're three grand short.  GAP insurance pays you that three grand. 

Consider the same but once the car is towards 3 years old, and when it's market value is maybe £8k.  Depending on which type of GAP insurance you buy, they'll pay you the 'gap' between the £8k your insurance pays you and the cost of a brand new one which has now gone up to £22k.

To answer your question "is it worth it?" - only if your car gets nicked or written off, then IMHO it's well worth it.

[diverdave]

Thanks for your replies. I will take your advice and look online and also look at ALA as Frosty suggested.

 

Thanks again.

[DarrenM]

I just bought Autotrader gap insurance online for mine. Cost about £100 IIRC and seemed just as good as Toyota's

[MEP's Yaris GS]

As above, I'm another ALA Customer - the only company that could offer 5 years cover, and I've gone for the additional vehicle replacement taking into account the next gen PiP pay well cost more than my current one did. Worked out about £45 a year roughly.

[johalareewi]

If you hold out and say you don't want it you may find that just before you take delivery of the car, MrT can suddenly do you a deal on the GAP insurance (and SuperWax or whatever).  It is worth checking what is available so you have an idea of prices.

[diverdave]

I think that you might be right Alan, the dealer has asked if I can complete the finance this month (quotas to meet I suppose) even though I am not due to pick up the car until the first week in May, he has offered me an extra £500 px on my present car as a sweetener so maybe I can tackle him over the GAP as well. 

[Duffryn]

On 11/04/2016 at 10:38 AM, FROSTYBALLS said:

One can buy GAP insurance far cheaper online, plus one can also get longer policies. We buy GAP insurance for both of our cars and consider worth it. One company is ALA and one can get a further discount through Toyota Owners Club - 

 

Many thanks for that Frosty. Before reading this thread I'd never heard of ALA, but now I have, and have just taken out 3 years cover for £112 (inc. 7% discount by using the TOC code). Considered 5 years but the price would have more than doubled to £244.

[johalareewi]

23 hours ago, diverdave said:

I think that you might be right Alan,

Happened to me when I bought the gen3. I said no to everything then on the day I was picking the car up, at the 11th hour, I got offered all the extras for £99 (originally £1000+).  YMMV

[posing]

I got Ala too but didn't know the TOC discount though, I went via TopCashback and got 10% cashback I think.

Also got the scratches and dent insurance.

[andreapenna]

Interesting.

I collected my Prius just few hrs ago. The dealer didn't move from the quoted £300 for the Toyota GAP 3 years.
I got the ALA quote for 3year for £132 but it doesn't accept the discount code can you please confirm the spelling? "toc 123"? It returns " Promotional code not available. " error message.

Thanks for any help :-)
Andrea

[Duffryn]

Have you tried without leaving the space between the c and 1 (ie. toc123 not toc 123)? 

[andreapenna]

Hi Duffryn,

thanks for your reply.
yes I tried both ways, still same error.

 

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

I negotiated the discount back in 2013. I've raised a query with ALA this evening re the discount code, and hopefully they'll come back to me fairly quickly. I'm away from home currently, so probably won't be on TOC during the day tomorrow, so just bear with me.

[andreapenna]

Thanks Frostyballs,

I'll wait for your update :-)

[FROSTYBALLS]

ALA have come back to me, and the code is still valid. They say the only two times the code may not be accepted is either where a balance from an existing policy is being transferred, or where a cash back site is also being used (normally the cash back is declined in favour of the TOC discount).

I would suggest that you give ALA a ring.

[andreapenna]

Ok, got it. I reached ALA through  TopCashback (mentioned in a message above).
I'll clean the cookies and will try again.

Thanks a lot for your precious support :-)