AIBU to refuse to pay this much excess on my insurance claim

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1]

I scraped the side of my car in a car park. My fault. Doors damaged and needs to be replaced. Rang my insurance company and they are bringing a courtesy car out on Monday and taking mine in to be repaired.

The lady on the phone said "there is a £350 excess to pay". I said, on my policy it says £250. Lady on phone says "yes, it's £250 excess on your policy and £100 excess for us, so it's £350 total".

How is this right? I didn't agree to this. I agreed to £250. How can they do this and can I afford to pay it.

I mean can I refuse to pay it, not can I afford to pay it.

It would have been on your policy somewhere so you must pay it.

There is often an extra excess for the insurance company.

Is it 250 voluntary and 100 standard? Cause I nearly got caught out by that once.

Car insurance tends to have a compulsory excess and a voluntary excess. The higher you choose your voluntary excess the cost of the insurance comes down.
So the insurance company probably have £100 compulsory and you chose £250 voluntary when selecting the policy.

It is £250 voluntary but surely all excess's are voluntary because you volunteer to pay that amount?

There's normally a standard excess and then a voluntary one on top

Read your policy, particularly the part about various excess add on.

I work in this industry, well in a head office function.

The extra £100 will be something to do with the courtesy car I imagine, in my limited knowledge.

Voluntary excess is ontop of the standard excess. Ivd never known a policy with 0 excess. It sounds like 350 is what you agreed to, even if it wasnt clear to you.

From USwitch

Theexcesson a carinsurancepolicy is usually split into two parts, known ascompulsoryandvoluntary excess. As the names suggest,compulsory excessis a mandatory amount set by your insurer, andvoluntary excessis an amount you can opt to pay.

Is it that there is a £100 standard excess and you agreed a voluntary excess of £250 which is in addition? This is pretty standard so what you need to do when applying for insurance is make sure you really read it thoroughly.

If you are prepared to pay £250 then you need to check what their standard excess is and only sign up to pay the difference.
Check your policy document.

Who are you with?

They offered you £100 excess and you volunteered £250 to lower your premium. (To dissuade you from claiming)

Apologies lost formatting when I pasted.

You need to read your policy in detail, as others have said there will be 2 levels of excess

One is compulsory and you set the other with changes the cost of your insurance

ah, now I see it. God I hate insurance :(

It will have all been in your policy documents, and on the quote screen (if you used a comparison site). Did you read the detail and your policy documents?
Sure you could refuse to pay it, but the insurer won't pay out on your claim and you'll have to pay for the damage yourself.

The £250 is an extra you signed up to to reduce your premium, their excess is £100 so yes, you do need to pay £350.

Oh ‘compulsory excess’ is the latest car insurance con!

It’s actually impossible to get a true £0 excess these days because they tell you there is a £100 or £150 ‘compulsory excess.’

It’ll be the compulsory element.

Essentially when you sign up and agree, they’re saying you MUST pay x to us in the event of an incident (to help cover costs) but how much EXTRA would you like to pay if something happens, so that right now you’re stumping up less.

@ Apple841

"The extra £100 will be something to do with the courtesy car I imagine, in my limited knowledge."
It won't be anything to do with a courtesy car. It will be the compulsory excess you sign up to which, if you claim, you will pay irrespective of whether you have a courtesy car.

Except @babycatcher411, the OP chose to add the voluntary excess. She could have just paid for insurance with compulsory but that's more expensive.

Smug they have different excess amounts for different events too so you may only pay £25 for a windscreen claim but an extra £100 on top of £350 for a theft claim i.e.
It's worth a check for everyone.

Sorry not you @babycatcher411! @PanicInAmerica said it

Panic I don't remember there ever not being a compulsory excess?