Anyone tell me about GAP insurance?

for a new car

Confused with Return to invoice, replacement car or finance cover

My situation is a new car on its way, invoice for 16k, px worth 1500 and deposit of 2500, rest made up with a loan.

guessing becasue of my deposit and PX, I'm best off with return to invoice?

can anyone recommend a good GAP insurer?

i have GAP insurance and i have been leed to belive that if i crash/right my car off i get what i payed for it when it was new??

but im sure im being slighty nieve about it with a set of rose tinted spec's.

I'd post this question on pistonheads.com/gassing

I thought it was to make up any difference between what the insurance company give you and what you owe the finance company in the event that it's written off, so that you don't end up carless yet still owing the finance company.

my understanding is the same as thegreatape's. only designed to make sure you don't end up still paying for a car that's written off or stolen.

Think hard about whether you really need to buy cover like this. It's similar to an extended warranty – something on which the dealer makes a massive margin/commission by playing on your fears at point-of-sale.

Ultimately a Gap policy should clear your debt to the finance company, but you're paying a premium to put you in a better position if the worst happens than if it doesn't.

Another reason not to pay list price for a new car.

All this can be avoided if you simply buy a cheaper used car than won't drop in value like a rock off a cliff.

Thanks PeterP for that helpful suggestion. Now if only I could change the company car opt out conditions I'll be laughing. 😆

Car BTW is 20 k worth list so I did what Hora suggested.

You got 4k off a new UK car? Way to go 😀

TBH. I don't think you are hardly 'chancing it' by refusing to take out GAP insurance. Like all policies, they'll have different small print and I wonder just how many would pay out in full on the new price (if all 'conditions' have been met).

'GAP insurance' – A new policy designed to stop you entering a certain store and wearing clothes that look like they have been washed far too many times… 😆 🙄

Gap insurance is a good product if you aren't paying too much for it. It usually gets offered to you at around the £400 mark for 3 years cover. Just doing a quick search online I have found a cover underwritten by AXA for £155 pounds. They will also fight it out with your insurance company to get the best price for the write off. As with any insurance though, you will only find out if it's any good when you come to use it. I think the only time they will not pay out is if they can prove that you have deliberately written the car off.

There are 2 different types of GAP.
1. is return to invoice (does exactly as is says, put you in the same position as when you bought the car.)
2. will pay off the finance in the event of you been in negative equity.

I'd point out that I've just been in a similar position (just got a new car) and looking at the small print in my insurance policy (direct line) for the first year, as I'm the first owner, they will replace it with a new equivalent spec car. Same as the gap insurance appears to offer. And then after the first year I'm not so bothered – as said above, in 2 years time, replacing with brand new puts me in a better position. So maybe have a close read through your insurance?

IA makes a good point there, most insurance companies offer the same. The difference been that your insurance company will sort out the supply of the new car as well.

A few points from dealers POV

Any customer that ever has to claim on GAP ins is a customer for life because its such a bonus when needed.

Gap ins (Retunr to invoice) cost a dealer about £150-£200 and depending on how hard you haggle i think between £250-350 is reasonable

Dont bother with the pay off finance as its not gonna make much of a difference unless you are buying a high depreciating car with low deposit over the never never. In which case i would say you are buying the wrong car.

Return to invoice covers any SHORTFALL between the insurance settlement and the invoice price, usually upto £10000 limit which is more often than not enough. In 3 yrs your car would have to depreciate from 16k to 6k to have any shortfall for the cover.

Is it worth it? Well thats for you to answer but i would say you will be in a shortfall situation quite quickly with your car and at 24-35mths old it would be extremely worthwhile in the event of a total loss.

Beware though, some car policies give new for old in first 12mths, so you are really only paying for 24mths cover.

All of the above is absolutely crock of ****. STW strikes again FFS. GAP insurance is to help remedy bad fashion advice when you think the "2 for 1" and "60% off" deals at GAP inc must represent too good a deal to refuse. A team of Fashionista's come round and redress your wardrobe..

I was offered it when I bought my second hand fiesta a couple years ago, I paid about £6,000 so I decided it wasnt really worth it. How wrong was I! Three months ago I got a cheque from Churchill for just under 3K. I lost £3,000!

Anyway I have now purchased a new golf and decided to learn from my mistakes! So i shopped around online for Gap Insurance. I nearly bought from Axa but when I checked the small print decided to go with http://www.click4Gap.co.uk. The lady i spoke to was so helpful and efficient (i had a lot of questions!)

In my opinion Gap Insurance is well worth it, hope this helps :o)

can anyone recommend a good GAP insurer?

Anyone but the garage selling you the car – probably a third of the price if you look around.

Had a great barney with the local garage when we bought the last car – they'd nicely added the gap insurance to the price we'd agreed without telling me, then the saleman couldn't actually explain what the change was. We ended up with the finance manager sitting scratching his head too until the saleman sheepishly admitted the error.

Ended up getting an additional discount for my troubles as I was walking out of the garage after that discovery…

Thanks all.

I suspected the garage was a rip off at 350 hard earned quids and found it much cheaper elsewhere.

Maybe I'll take it out in a years time.

Interesting this. I have just bought a second hand car from an authorised dealer and bought the gap insurance (£300 for 3 years on a 56 plate Civic). Thinking of ditching it whilst in my "cooling off" period. What struck me is that it is a second hand car so the bulk of the depreciation has already happened. The other thing is that the insurance payout without gap insurance is "market value". I'm expecting that would be in the ballpark of what I would get if I part-exchanged it. So in essence, it my car gets nicked, I'm no worse off than if I chose to part-ex it at that time. Voila! I am "forced" to buy a new car before I want to but I'm in no worse a situation than if I chose to buy a new car. Mmmm 😕

Errr, pretty sure it MUST be signed up at time of purchase. Especially on return to invoice

UPDATE:
Has a quick look on Click4gap and got a price of £127 instead of the £300 the dealer charged me. Not checked all the small print for the differences yet. I will be exercising my write to cancel though

Glad I read this 🙂

Unless you have a 4×4 and/ or some serious driving ability I'd give the Gap a miss in a car.

VW having it LARGE

stilltortoise – did you get return to value or return to invoice from click4gap? I got Return to invoice, so glad i shopped around, the dealership tried charging £350 and i got mine for £127 too!

Very happy! 🙂

QUOTE: Errr, pretty sure it MUST be signed up at time of purchase. Especially on return to invoice

QUOTE: I suspected the garage was a rip off at 350 hard earned quids and found it much cheaper elsewhere. Maybe I'll take it out in a years time.

REPLY: Good news guys – confused.com has introducted a "car depreciation" insurance that you can buy up to 7 years after you bought your car. Much cheaper than the dealer and has RTI on it too.

Don't let the dealers rip us off any more – my one was going to charge me £425 (which Im embarressed to say I thought wasn't too bad for three years) then when I found it online for £117 – they dropped the price!!!

Instead of enticing me to buy it I felt like slapping him! He was going to rip me off for all that extra profit if he could get away with it – and sleep at night. No way were they getting a penny more of my money.

There was loads of choice on-line, but http://www.confused.com won my business on the basis a brand just doesn't get any bigger than that.