Whan looking for insurance for my car, there are cumpulsory excesses and voluntary excesses.

The word voluntary implies that one has a choice in paying an excess when an accident occurs and there is nobody else to claim from, but i'm sure it isn't voluntary.

Am I right in thinking they really mean "do you want to reduce your premium by increasing your mandatory excess"?

I think so.

Am I right in thinking they really mean "do you want to reduce your premium by increasing your mandatory excess"?

yes – only a very nieve person would think otherwise

i think what he thinks.

Voluntary is an amount you agree to pay towards the policy to lower your premiums. But in the event of a claim it becomes compulsory.

Some of the recent moneygosupercomparemeercats adverts have showed £400 excess… that's off every single claim. All in the name of cheaper upfront prices. Worrying.

I had to make a claim on my house insurance. When I took out the policy the compulsory excess was £50 but I opted for a voluntary excess of £100. When I made the claim I had to pay the first £150. I didn't realise they added the two together, thought it was just upping the excess from £50 to £100.

Your total excess will be compulsory + voluntary. This will then be deducted by the insurance company from any claim you make. If there is a third party involved you may be able to claim the total excess back off them if the accident's their fault (usually using the legal expenses cover you have).

There may also be different compulsory excesses on a policy depending for example on the age of the driver or for windscreen claims.

I think they should remove the words "Volunatary Excess" and replace it with "Increase Excess to Reduce Premium".

This is the trouble with buying anything these days – vague and misleading wording.

Someone mentioned that one would be niaive to expect an excess to be voluntary in the event of a claim, but why make it sound like there is a possibility that is might be the case?

I support the campaign for Plain English!

When scouring insurance scraping sites, it's pretty clear that there are many pitfalls. The conclusion I draw is that sites like Gocompare, Moneysupermarket, Comparethemarket and Moneysavingexpert are useful for getting a pile of quotes on one screen, but their search software doesn't work properly in keeping to your entered criteria, so you are not comparing like for like. The price ranking therefore isn't much use in this instance. You have to drill down into individual quotes to see what is actually covered, what the different excesses are, any exclusions.

This is all fine if you have all day plus a good memory. Chances are, you won't get the best deal if you take these results at face value and/or are in a bit of a hurry.

I think they should remove the words "Volunatary Excess" and replace it with "Increase Excess to Reduce Premium".

Why? Personally I don't see the problem with the current wording – the excess is what you pay in the event of a claim. It's voluntary to have more excess. Just how much thought does it take to realise that a voluntary excess which you could decide not to pay would be totally pointless?

darwins theory of evolution at work aracer …..